We learn as we read; we also learn as we review.

How does reading a poem and reviewing it work for you?

Similar to how I write I suppose, when I read, I do so in many different styles, assume many different personas. Often I am a selfish reader, an impatient reader, a stubborn reader, an arrogant reader (OK, I can hear the jaws drop now) etc, etc. But I think Maggie wants us to think about how we read and review critically. Maybe I am wrong about Maggie's intent, but that's how I approach this.

Something I have learned, or more accurately, learned to accept, in the last year or so, is that sometimes a failure to connect with a poem is down to me. My own preferences, ideas, politics, belief system, relationships, personal baggage -- whatever, sometimes I bring something to a poem that doesn't connect with the intentions of the writer at that time and sparks fly in a not-good way. Realising this has allowed me to appreciate, critique, learn, in a much more open way. When I fail to connect with a poem I question myself first, not the poem, not the poet. OK, not all the time. Sometimes the writer makes it easy for the reviewer by writing something that is just clearly bad in terms of technique, diction, delivery . . . . But most of the time, I try to understand what a writer is trying to do, even, no especially, when they do things I don't like or wouldn't do myself. This often leads to me experimenting in my own writing. It doesn't always work for me, but the process of trying to understand the decisions a writer makes, trying things on for size, learning things about myself and my own preferences -- all of that is invaluable to me.

OK, I feel like I have a whole lot more to say here, so I will stop now, and say Thank You Maggie, for another potentially rewarding thread.

Looking forward to hearing from you all.


B.

Like you, I'm a selfish reader, Brian; I want to be dazzled by story and use of language, but I stopped worrying that I don't get all that I read on the first run-through; poems can be obtuse and take many readings before you crack them, if you ever crack them.

In a perfect world, we'd be able to give each poem its due before reviewing:

1. A slow first read followed by a trip anywhere that let's your muse mull over what you just read.
A few minutes or more away from the poem depending on your intentions sets the poem up
for a closer look.

2. Then a second read, outloud, your ears fully engaged in sound, and your lips as equally involved,
feeling the sound of one word moving toward or away from another, one phrase, one line, one sentence,
one stanza. And is all this working for or against the intentions of the poem?

About now, you're saying, Gee, Mag, all I want to do is read a poem.

Well, so do I.
But when we decided we were poets, our reading habits changed in a big way. Now,
we want to know why we like the work that pleases us, what's the nit in that line that's
pulling at our ear, how can we use the strengths in this piece to improve our own work.

This happens pretty lickety-split, too. We should be glad we don't have to pay our muse
for all the work he or she does without our asking.

Before poetry, we had lives; afterwards, a potential poem exists in every minute of every life
we encounter, including our own.

And we're always learning. A billboard will teach us something about language.

You don't have to be schooled to be a good poet, but you should at least school yourself
in basic poet-speak to leave a decent review.

Like Brian said, experiment, both in the kinds of poetry you read and exploring your thoughts
on what you've read; don't let reviewing intimidate you.

It's a process that will help you with your recognize flaws in your ouw work. That muse button
always on thing.

Thanks, Brian.

Maggie

Maybe that's what goes into the reading and reviewing, too:  the ability to see potential in a poem, seeing any given draft as part of a continuum, going somewhere and coming from somewhere else.  I learned from one of my teachers to see a poem as something in process, and I can do this for my students' essays.  It's been fairly recently -- since being on PC -- that that poem-as-continuum idea has taken hold in the way I review others' poems.  Before that, I tended to treat every draft as finished, and held it up to the poems I revere from other writers.  Now I don't think that much about standards, just about helping the poem take its next step, hop, or flight.

Rick

Well said, Rick.  Maggie

The saddest thing is to see a dead  poem with the writer is pounding on its chest or breathing into its mouth, desperate for it to be alive.  Pronouncing it dead is a thankless task.

Being a poet means that nothing is ever dead. What you do have to do is take your mouth off the damn thing, walk away, and watch and see what it does!

"But when we decided we were poets, our reading habits changed in a big way. Now,
we want to know why we like the work that pleases us, what's the nit in that line that's
pulling at our ear, how can we use the strengths in this piece to improve our own work."

Reading a poem and reviewing it -- how does this work for me?  Well.  I'm often awed, especially by very short pieces that are also very good.  How do they do that?  I want to know.  Sometimes, reading again and again, I can't see the "way" of it and only know that it happened, that I was transported by some means from here to there -- the world of the poem.  This is true of longer poems, too.  The good ones carry me and I want to know how or why they were able to do that.  I learn [I suppose] by way of dissecting the bits and pieces that make up the whole -- but this doesn't mean I figure it out.  ["it" being the magic that takes place in the good stuff.]

Some poems I review are well-written, but the magic is missing for this reader.  Realizing why that is so for me is sometimes easier -- perhaps it's the clarity or ambiguity in a single line.  perhaps it's the absence of assonance and alliteration.  perhaps it's that I don't have a sense of where I am at the end, or exactly where I've been on my way to the end.  or even if I've ended up where the reader intended . . . The same is true for the work I write.  Usually not immediately.  But let a little time intervene and I read a piece written in the past and I think, "What?"  or "Huh?"  A little time let's me see my own work as I see other poet's work for the first time.  A little time let's me see what confuses, what shines, what works and what fails -- not necessarily see these things with any answers as to what would make the work better, but know that the work can be better. 

I started this comment out with a quote from Maggie's primer.  And I did so because this especially applies to me when working/reviewing my own work.  Oh, I offer my two cents of advice on what I hear and see in the work of others that works or fails to my ear -- but that is my ear, and not, perhaps, the ear of the poet whose creation I may be critiquing.  I like to be informed as to what others hear in my work so that I can make value judgments in re: what my readers hear vs. what I hear.  Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, what I hear is what I need for the work -- but those honest opinions from others are what enable me to see/hear/sense the poem through the ears/eyes/cognitive thoughts of others.

Thanks for the thread, Mags.

ld

Some poems have to be given a decent burial or they'll contaminate the others.  I've thrown away and tossed away many a poem, and I'm more free because of it.  If there was spark of life in it to begin with, the spark with hitch a ride into beingness in another poem. 

There's so much truth to this, I can't tell you how many times, when I was younger, that I held onto something diseased and it just threw everything off course. Maybe it's my obsessive thought process, but just knowing that it was sitting there rotting drove me up a wall. It's like spring cleaning, everything feels so much better neat and tidy.

On the other hand, it's like this, silent/out loud/silent/out loud. I love reading poetry, I don't really get the time, but I try to. I always feel bad though because I have a very hard time reviewing bad poetry, or at least what I deem 'bad', I suppose it's all subjunctive. I think a review should always remain honest & emotionless. I'm not easy at hiding how I feel, so more than often if I don't like it, I won't say anything. And I feel bad about that,  something to work on, I suppose.

Good question.

I've learned there are just some poems I can't relate too.  Sometimes, if I read the other reviews, I will get a way into the poem.  Sometimes not.  The field of poetry is a lot bigger territory than most of us can live in.  I've never met a poet comfortable with all of it.

Rick

I like your point, a lot, Rick. Tom

I try to be as unselfish as I know how to be when I read a poem I know I might be commenting on.  Sometimes I don't want to comment on the poem at all because I don't know what to say, so I pick out a favorite line or two.  Some poems are hard to review because I don't enjoy them--they seem boring to me.  I've learned it's best for me to pass those up, rather than try to fake it to keep from hurting someone's feelings.

I do like to choose a poem with no comments, because I know, in my own way, how that writer feels.  If it's been there awhile, and I still can't find anything salvageable about it, I'd say the poem is ready to be tossed (or whatevah--each to his own), which is why I delete so many of mine--I know if a couple of days go by & the pitiful just sits, and I don't even like it anymore, I delete it.  I know the world doesn't revolve around me or my writing, but my world does sometimes, and it just feels better not to look at it.

All for now.  Next time I'll be more positive.

It's Friday night & I'm posting on the internet.  What does that say about me?

It means you're right where it's happening baby! Late Night Friday Night on PC!

Cheryl,

If you're deleting poems, I hope you're keeping them someplace safe
for a look-see later on.

"It's Friday night & I'm posting on the internet.  What does that say about me?"

I'ts Friday night and a poet's posting her work for other poets to read.
That says a lot about you.

Maggie

Maggie and Tom, thanks much for these comments.  Didn't see them until the next day, but they still make the nights easier.

(Just started posting them in "journalese", Maggie.)