This is where we talk shop.

First question: How do you review a poem?

Here's your first primer:

William Packard, founder of the New York Quarterly, defines Criticism as: "The art of evaluation, judgement or analysis of a literary work." in his book, The Poet's Dictionary, published by HarperPerrenial, a Division of HarperCollins Publishers in 1994.

He goes on to say this:

"What follows is a checklist of technical points that pertains to any poem, giving specific points one can question, step by step, in the attempt to criticize by description. The checklist is more practical than theoretical.

OPENING OF POEM:

Is the poem titled or untitled? Does it seem apt?
Does the poem have a strong enough opening?
Do the first few lines establish appropriate tone?
Would any later part of the poem make a better opening?

SIGHT DEVICES:

Are there enough specific image details in the poem?
Are the metaphors and similes apt?
Do any figures or conceits need further development
Are any sections of poem weak in visual images?

SOUND DEVICES:

Is there any strong assonance–vowels sounds?
Is there any strong alliteration–consonant sounds?
Any problem with scansion or rhythm in poem?
Anything special about texture of sound in poem?

SENSE DEVICES:

What is voice or persona or point of view in poem?
Is diction consistent? Any odd word choices?
Is syntax appropriate? Sentence structuring?
What is totality of tone in poem?

CLOSURE OF POEM:

Do last few lines seem right for ending of poem?
Does the closure seem artificial or overwritten?
Could poet get of poem in any better way?
Should poem be left suspended, with no closure?

PLACEMENT ON PAGE:

Do the line breaks seem right? Enjambments?
Does poem have left-hand capitals? Why? Or why not?
Can any punctuation in poem be stripped away?
Could line placements be arranged in a better way?

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS:

Can this poem be tightened in any way?
Is there any rhetoric, generality, abstract words?
Could any parts of poem be developed more?
More proper names, place names, concrete particulars?

The chief virtue of this checklist is that it tries to cover the entire range of technical considerations that go into the making of a poem.

But as we said at the outset, this checklist is simply meant as a practical guide to arrive at an objective description of what is already there on the page. To be sure, the answers to the various questions on the checklist will require considerable judgement and deliberate choices on the part of the poet or reader or whoever is trying to apply the checklist to any particular poem.

But that's all part of the training one has to go through to be able to see what kind of a poem one is trying to describe.

And as we said, the best criticism is always description."

Thanks, Maggie, for this post, which is a great check list to be applied both critically to the work of others and to one's own.  I would only add a general question, which is embodied in all of this, but through its simplicity might be a most important one for any writer to ask of their own work is: " Is this boring?"

Cheers

milner

Good point, Milner.  Maggie

I'll add something my father-in-law told me. He's an abstract artist and saw me fumbling for something to say about his paintings. He said "You don't have to judge anything. Just tell me what happens to you when you look at it. If something confuses you, say so. If it makes you think of Aunt Millie, say so. If it makes you sad, say so. It's like test-driving a car. The guy who build it just wants you to tell him exactly what happens when you drive it."

That's a good point, too, Tom. For paintings. But we're talking about a helpful critique of a poem.

If you just talk about the emotional reaction to the content of a poem, how do poem and poet benefit?

Maggie

The poet benefits by finding out if the poem works as intended or not, in the emotional sphere.

Having thought further, with due respect for Mr Packard, I think I prefer this:

Ars magnetica
                          Pablo Neruda

From so much love and travelling come books,
and if they don’t contain kisses or regions,
if they don’t contain a man with full hands,
if they don’t contain a woman in each drop,
hunger, desire, anger, roads,
they’re useless as a shield or bell:
they have no eyes and can’t open them,
they have the dead mouth of a statement.

I loved the tangling of genitals,
and from blood and love I carved my poems,
in hard earth I planted a rose
fought over by the fire and the dew.

Thus I can go my way singing.

Cheers

milner

So, are you both saying, as reviewers, standards of craft are secondary to the reader's emotional response to a poem?

Maggie

One of my favorites of his, Milner. Every line a gem.  Maggie

It needs craft to produce emotional response, at the higher level. But there are times when I've felt that some poets, with superb technique, write too well. In other words, their concentration on technique and craft stifles the emotional content. I feel like saying " I want to hear a shout, a scream." It's a question of craft being your servant, never your master. I  think I'm frightened of essaying any truly and proper analytical approach, feeling it would inhibit my own work, though, as I hope always to improve my craft, I welcome and respect that critical assessment on my own work by others. I fear I'll never make much of a critic. The best I have to offer is fruit from the tree of my experience. I've a woolly mind, and the most I can attempt is to comb it to as fine a fleece as I'm able.

milner

"It needs craft to produce emotional response, at the higher level." - Milner

I think I fall on Maggie's side of the fence. As reviewers, we can enjoy a poem; react to it emotionally; but should focus on how we can help the poet improve their technique.

No fence here, I think, Lavonne, just that some will be better at it than others. We'll all try our best to focus.

Cheers

milner

Here, here. :)

O my.  Just saw reference to this in "submit" & am just now reading.  Looks awesome.  I'll catch-up.  I can see already, I need need need to.

Thanks so much for this post,
cheryl

We all want to help each other improve our technique, but disagree a bit on how to help. Telling me how exactly how my pony rides does definitely help me improve my technique, as I learn what works, what doesn't, and why. Emotion is just one area of the ride, but this kind of feedback is all about technique. Specific technical suggestions, rather than just feedback, can also help sometimes.

I agree there are no fences here.  At least I don't intend to jump any because there are none in my eyes.

This is what I have a tendency to do: "In other words, their concentration on technique and craft stifles the emotional content."--and that coming from Milner, an excellent poet, so I have a tendency to understand what he's saying to me, specifically--don't allow my struggle for 'good writing' stifle what provoked writing the poem in the first place.

cheryl

I like this; it's exactly what I often offer in responses to poems.  It's what I need, as a poet, to know about my own work -- if the connection is there to an unknown reader out there in the world.  I like work that pricks me, for good or ill.  

I like Packard's checklist as well.  And Milner's question: Is this boring? is one I don't ask myself in re: my own work often enough.  

Will also say that I'm often moved by a poem in one way or another and "consequent" edits to the work 1.) make the poem even better than I would've thought possible; or, 2.) remove whatever it was that initially moved me (connected to something inside me) by becoming more technically correct.   It's a slippery slope, this creative writing stuff.  What works splendidly in one area, may well fail in another.  For me, whether looking at my own creations or those of others, the line is very fine between craft and that spark of intent/creation.  [Just thought about the amazing fingerpaintings my five-year-old granddaughter made; how beautiful they are framed; how full of color and discordancy and immediacy].

Yes.  I like this thread.  I like the checklist.  Applying a rule, to see how it fits, can't hurt.  An edit made one way can always be reversed if the result is not what the poet intended.  And I like emotional responses to pieces.  Yes.

Maggie, your prĭm'ər became a prī'mər! Was a great idea. Tom

I broadly agree with efforts to improve feedback, but to concentrate just on the technique without including feedback to the poem as art, including emotional response, is limiting, and I believe tends to an academic model of review.  It can be very mechanical. 

The resource that we have in poetry circle is variety...because we have so many readers who are commenting, the work is exposed to variety of response.   One person may have a very fine ear for sound, another a sharp eye for misplaced puncuation,  another may be new to poetry circle and just wish to record that they liked a particular line...and that in itself is useful for this writer.

Sharon Olds' approach is to comment in detail on emotional aspects of the poem. This is from my notes made at her workshop...

When giving feedback be as specific as you can.  Speak about what you liked about the form, rhythm, rhyme or lack of it, metaphor, clarity, the shape of the piece, ordering, wit, musicality or images.  Say how you felt as you heard it, report any emotional responses or bodily sensations as you heard it. 

Since we often write poetry prompted by emotion, or wishing to evoke emotion, it is very useful to be told in feedback that, for example: "this moved me to tears", or "I didn't see the twist coming," " my hair stood on end at that point," or "you could be drifting into sentimentality here."

That is enough from me for now.  I will continue to watch the discussion develop.

thank you for posting that mags, i'll keep it in mind when critiquing :)

I agree.  It is possible.  And there may be "craft" in applying gesso, but what comes after the gesso is often aided by craft, practice, innovation.  Even the gesso itself may need sanding and reapplication.  There is a certain beauty in the flat gothic paintings of times past, but Caravaggio [sp?] took shadings etc. to another level.

–verb (used with object) 9. to make or manufacture (an object, objects, product, etc.) with skill and careful attention to detail.

What a wonderful thread. Nothing posted here that isn't of use to all of us. Maggie, I read the Packard checklist when I joined EP, printed it off and it's been here on my desk, always within reach, ever since.
I absolutely agree that emotional responses are important, but to dwell on that seems, to me, to miss Maggie's intention when she started the thread. Currently, the majority of reviews/responses to poems on the site are based on an emotional level. I think what Maggie is trying to do is encourage us all to think more about craft and the technicalities of writing. And even if we don't "apply" Packard's checklist to every poem we read/write, it certainly won't hurt to have it in the back of one's mind.

Great thread, long overdue methinks.

B.

I think I finally see (partly, I hope, anyway) the distinction Maggie's making, and what we are "arguing" over in the thread. When she says "talk shop" in original post, and "talk to each other as writers," as she has said elsewhere--she means give feedback not as readers but as writers, workers in the same craft.

What others and I myself have been adding (a la my father-in-law in #3 above) is that we value is feedback from PC'ers also as readers, so we can figure out how our writing actually reads.

So I see this distinction now, anyway. Both seem valuable, but as Tim said somewhere recently, we could potentially get reader feedback elsewhere; probably Maggie would agree that PC is a unique opportunity to "talk shop" instead.

Since I don't get much reader feeback elsewhere, I really value getting that here. And I just love the shop talk too. So I would like to add my voice in encouraging the latter, without trying to curtail the former. Tom

Since I don't get much reader feeback elsewhere, I really value getting that here. And I just love the shop talk too. So I would like to add my voice in encouraging the latter, without trying to curtail the former. Tom

[/quote]

YES! That's just what I feel.  increase the shop talk but don't exile the rest. I would add that the reader feedback you get here is more trustworthy than that given by many sources outside of the forum. 

Thanks for the support, Brian. You summarized my thoughts better than I did.

You get it, Tom, and you do, too, Sue.

This, paraphrased, from one of Ginsberg's lectures: Don't write for your mother's eyes, or your wife's or your best friend from childhood days. Write your poems 'to' the one or two people you know will tell you straight to your face that they suck if they suck. The word 'suck' encompossing many meanings.

When he sat down to write, it was with his father and Kerouac in mind.

That's what Tim does, Tom.  The people he sends his drafts to are some of his best ciritics.
(And, oh my God, you should hear him read!!)

I'll be putting up something from Ginsberg in the next primer.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Maggie

Looking forward to it.

B.

I'm moving this back up because it's a good thing to read.

Rick

thanks for moving this back up rick.  i agree with tom. while i do post my poems in other workshops, i feel my true test as a poet is this pc crowd.  this is where i feel the most vulnerable with my work, only because i know i have other writers reading my poems who have been writing longer than me, write in other genres than me, and have most likely been published far more than me.  it's with this in mind i read every comment and crtique carefully and take them to my writing.  i enjoy other writer's throwing in their two for word choice, stanza arrangement, tone, style, etc.  not only does that provide me with their insight foremost as a writer, but a reader as well.