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Critiquing Your Own & Others Poems
by Jennifer Bosveld
Reprinted from the chapter, "Critiquing Toward Clarification: Part of the Process"
from Topics for Getting in Touch
After the initial pouring out that becomes a poem in some condition, most poems will greatly benefit from revision. Revision, re-vision, re-seeing, requires a coming-back-around to the poem time after time to reconsider various aspects of it in order to maximize the impact of the poem on its readers. There are particular things you can consider. Not all of these issues are relevant for every poem. Not all poems must MEAN anything. Poetry does not need to be written in sentences, for example. And I consider 'e.e. cummings' the king of punctuation because of how he used language graphically on the page. He punctuated with words and spacing and word relationships.
If you evaluate the following aspects of your poem with an open mind, ready to be the makar of the best possible poem, it will not only make better "art", but it can clarify personal issues or perceptions.
STRANGE
My first word of advice comes out of my bias. "Make it strange!" It is comfortable and tempting to use word relationships and common phrases you've always relied on. But consider this. Stanton Samenow says "The therapist's job is not to comfort the afflicted, but to afflict the comfortable." This thinking is applicable in the making of art and especially poetry. So I say, "The poet's job is not to comfort us with the familiar but to afflict the subject with new and bothersome light." Perhaps it isn't a poem yet unless you've made me uncomfortable. Make me MOVE--shift in my seat, yell Yes!, get the dictionary, tell my brother about these two lines you wrote, change where I shop, make me take a walk, drive me to call the travel agent... or any combination of those and more. Change me. Make me wonder about your mental state, what you've put in that pipe, whether you've had too much caffeine. Make me wonder if we live on the same planet. Take me to YOUR leader. Give me the hic-cups from a gasp of awe. Distract me from the news, the kids, the thesis, make me late for the party because I was driven to read that poem four times because every time I peeled away a different meaning. Make me
wonder where I've been all my life. I want to be terrified for the quality of my own work. Show me that I haven't been working hard enough on my own poems compared to yours. Make Joan of Arc Kidney Beans, Al Gore, Aunt Sadie's stained glass bird cage, and your Magnavox monitor all relevant in the same poem. Or call me a liar. Show me that every poem doesn't need concrete objects afterall.
WOW us without a single one but with a twist of qualifiers nouned to ... what am I talking about, figure out what I'm talking about. Make it stranger than anything I've imagined so far but bring me a new sense of things. Whether you agree with me on this, probably most teachers of poetry would agree with the rest of this list.
THEME
What is the point of the poem?
After we would problem-solve the syntax, parallel construction, or spelling, and after we look at language choice and focus on the subject, would we still be left with a trite theme?
If so, you're better off getting on to the next poem. We can try to fix all those grammatical aspects of the poem but if after you've done all that you're left with nothing new to tell me, it will never be a poem. "I just wrote this for therapy" is an attitude (whether the writer's or the mentor's) that dis-serves growth or healing every bit as much as it dis-serves "the product" (the poem).
LANGUAGE
A.
Is the language used appropriately for the objective of the poem?
Is the language fresh, innovative, creative?
Is there any trite language that can be eliminated?
Are cliches present?
Are you sure you can recognize a cliche when it is present in your own work?
Only one who reads and listens a great deal has a chance of recognizing a cliche. Since current statistics show that most people do not read that much and listen even less effectively, it is important to look closely with the cliche detector. Any familiar sounding phrase is suspect. Any metaphor or simile you've heard before is suspect. If this is "hotter than a firecracker" then it is only the "hot" of the common person, and not of the poem-maker. Remember, by definition, a poet sees differently, casts new and bothersome light, nearly afflicts the subject with uncomfortable freshness.
Is the tone consistent and appropriate to the theme or with the mood?
Think scene and dialogue perhaps, rather than shifting into a summation or becoming philosophical.
Is the language concrete, full of specific and intriguing details?
Have "big words" like "love," "beautiful," and "nice" been translated into words that mean something?
Is language sharp and detailed (crystal rowboats and Kelloggs Cornflakes) rather than vague and full of abstractions--"a beautiful forest", what does that mean?
Are there too many adjectives and adverbs?
Say "Pledge" instead of furniture polish. Say "Pepsi" instead of soft drink. (Usually) Think "product placement" and use the products of your life or the life of the character in your poem. Rely on hard-working action verbs and specific nouns.
B.
Test your word choices and word placement. Test for meaning including denotation and connotation. Test for exactness or effectiveness of relating your message. Test for best position in the sentence, phrase, line ending/beginning. If you're writing free verse or experimental work, become aware of the many reasons for beginning and ending a line where you do. The last word in a line is often an easily accentuated word/sound. Or it can set us up for what's coming next. Sometimes I try to place action verbs at the beginnings of lines because it thrusts the poem forward.
C.
Question each word's right to inhabit the poem. That is the difference between most poetry and most prose. In a poem each word is crucial.
Does a word appear to be cute?
Cute doesn't last long. Cute is the terminal disease of a poem.
Does the word say enough?
LOGIC
Is construction parallel?
What about unity?
Does X plus Y equal XY?
Do images and concepts excite the focus of the poem without betraying your lack of knowledge in a field?
Have you lied to the reader?
Are you sure all references to nature are accurate, that you haven't embarrassed yourself by putting two birds together in a tree they'd never share?
MEANING
Clarity!
Will the reader understand the poem at least on some level so that there is a key provided to unlock other levels?
Is it unnecessarily difficult?
Is the audience considered?
Avoid pretentious or unnecessary and unfair allusions to obscure historical or scientific data unless THAT is exactly what you are writing about and at least a targetted audience will understand.
Is enough information provided?
Would a talented reader be confused?
And, is the meaning new? That is important.
VOICE
Is it the omniscient POET we hear on a platform? Hope not! The poem should have a life of its own, a separate energy. It should be a personal experience for the reader without the poet getting in the way.
Is the poet bragging about his ethics, perceptions, vocabulary? If so, revise.
Does the sound of sense seem whole throughout the work?
But what of rants and political poetry?
Those take some nerve and finesse to pull off. Allen Ginsberg did it well, others do it well once in a while. I tend to overwrite when I write rants; I have to hone down considerably. Keep me interested in hearing your voice, buying what it is you have to sell, without beating me over the head.
FOCUS
Is the poet confused about his own point?
Is too much trying to be said?
What IS the focus?
What is the method of exposure?
Is this an extended metaphor?
Is it well and clearly extended?
Or is it mixed up with other comparisons that disrupt the picture?
Are you trying to paint too many pictures, solve too many problems in this one poem?
FORM
What is the form? All poems have form; I am certainly not necessarily recommending a "traditional" form although that can have value too. Is the form so close to a traditional form that you might as well go ahead and perfect it?
If it is a traditional form, did you avoid the pitfalls of same? (Forced rhyme, inverted expressions, etc.)
If free verse, is it tight/carved/sweated over? Or did you allow the handle, "free verse," to imply free to do what you want no matter how ineffective?
Does the form feel good around the poem?
Or is the message at all sacrificed for the sake of the form?
Watch for forced rhymes. Consider writing the piece without rhyming. Experiment with various sprinklings of the words across the lines. Pay attention to where the breaths are that begin and end lines (if that's the case). Have a reason for stopping a line where it bends around to the next, even if it isn't for breath or sentence chunks.
PUNCTUATION
Including lack of. Use either uniformly, or with some kind of rationale ready. If there is no punctuation, are line breaks or spaces used creatively in order to assist the reader? Are commas, semi-colons, and dashes used correctly? And surely ellipses have not been abused all over the page. Why do I say 'e.e. cummings' is the king of punctuation?
CONCLUSION
Is the poem concluded WITHOUT summing itself up or stating the obvious or restating and being redundant?
Is there an interesting whip at the end, perhaps?
Does the reader have a sense of closure, yet a probability of being haunted by the poem (I hope so). Leave something for the reader to bring to the poem.
SHELF LIFE
Would you like to come back to this poem every now and then?
Can it withstand close attention?
If it is topical, does it at least offer a sociological looking glass for a day in history?
Is it framed in such a way that it won't be worthless once the subject is out of the news?
IS IT A POEM YET?
Revisit the muse! Sometimes after you have critiqued and repaired according to all these guidelines, you finally reread the poem and discover it has lost its original freshness or that you have lost some of your initial passion for the subject or excitement for the poem. That's when it is time to go back and revisit the muse. Put yourself back into that time and space where inspiration or "need to write" first hit and make adjustments.
POLISHING
Spelling and other grammatical editing and proofreading can now be considered.
What are this poem's major strengths and weaknesses?
Feel free to revise again! I've been known to create up to 49 generations of a poem. It is unfortunate that most of us don't revise by hand now that we're composing on computer. Seeing a pile of revisions for a single poem is rather exhilerating and validating. Some people argue that poems are like people, they're never DONE, they're always in process. Some days I believe that and some days I don't.
I do know there comes a time when we must let the poem go, like a healed bird, or like a child. Your poetry is to be treated, eventually, like the people in your life who you treat with respect. Apply the words of the singer, Sting, "If you love someone, set them free." If you love this poem enough to be possessive and hypersensitive to any critiquing of it, you DO NOT love it enough. Love this poem enough to work on it; love it enough to set it free of cliches and poor word choice; love it enough to set it free of vague language. Set it free of this fog caused by a lack of focus. Set it free of the hiding place caused by resistance to change, resistance to work, resistance to turn your back on the original aha! Bring the situation of this poem into clear and bothersome light and simultaneously you will free the
spirit of the poem and free the poet of the need to beat it to death. You will free the poet. You will free yourself.
Make the poem more important than YOU if you want to grow as a poet. Because in doing so, you might create art that is higher than what you have brought us thus far. No poem is worth the making unless it informs the maker.