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Critiquing Poetry (Including Your Own)

Helping Writers Achieve Their Dreams for Over 14 Years!

by Gwyneth Box

It's always difficult to be objective about your own writing, because of the personal
associations. Despite this, if you hope to find a publisher, you must try and write as well
as you can, which includes objective assessment and often ruthless editing.

Here are some things to consider when critiquing your own or other poets' work:

Subject. If the poem is personal, does it rise above the purely individual and become
more widely relevant? It's easy to forget that poetry is art, not a diary entry, nor
journalism. It does not have to reflect the truth exactly as it happened. The facts are no
more than raw materials and you should manipulate, adapt and polish until they fit your
needs. This alteration gives you a greater chance of writing something that touches
other people, rather than something that is dismissed as an adolescent angst poem.

Does the poem deal with one of the 'big' subjects like love or peace? If so, does it show
a new perspective? Or is it stating what has already been said many times? It's usually
better to avoid the big issues, or, at least, not to try and deal with the whole thing at
once: one specific small incident or image is usually worth a lot more than
overwhelming generalizations which tend to result in cliché-ridden verse.

Title. Not all poems have a title, but if they do, it should add something to the piece.
The first line is useful for reference or filing purposes, but rarely works as a title. Nor
should you necessarily use a direct quote from the poem. This is particularly true of
short poems where the repetition of a phrase in title and poem may detract from its
effectiveness.

Form and Structure. There are many formal poetry structures (sonnets, sestinas,
dizains, villanelles etc), but sometimes one is more appropriate than another. A well-
written sonnet, for example, is a lovely tool for putting forward two contrasting ideas or
Starting views of one subject, and then rounding off with a conclusion in the couplet. It is not, A Writer's
Your however, the ideal form for narrating a story. Year 2015
Career as
a Of course you don't need to use a traditional form: there's nothing wrong with free
Freelance verse, if it's the best form for what you're trying to say. But do make a conscious
Writer decision: the form and content should complement each other.

Rhyme. Rhyming couplets and iambic quatrains are difficult to use for serious poetry as
the idea often gets subordinated to the form, resulting in doggerel. The same is true of
constant end-rhyme: it's tempting to twist the word order, or use archaic vocabulary, to
force the content to fit the form. Remember that you can use half rhyme, which is less
obtrusive than full rhyme, and internal rhyme, too. And, of course, there are other
The
sound devices such as assonance and alliteration, which can (and perhaps should) be
Writer's
used.
Guide to
Meter. Very few people nowadays believe that verse must have a perfectly regular Holidays...
Queries,
Pitches meter; however, it is still an important aspect of poetry. Even free verse makes use of
and rhythm to convey or strengthen meaning. One way to find out if your poem works
Proposals metrically is to read it out loud. If you find that you have to put unnatural stress on an
article or preposition, or you have to scurry to cram too many syllables in too short a
space, go back and re-work it. Don't ever be satisfied with 'I can make it sound right';
ask yourself honestly if someone else could.

One more thing -- don't think that slipping in an extra article, pronoun, 'and' or 'but' to
make it scan is always the best solution: consider whether that syllable is really Writing to
necessary. Don't pad; rewrite. Win
Layout and line breaks. Line breaks and verse structure don't automatically make
something a poem. The breaks work together with punctuation to show the reader how
the poem is to be read. Again, reading out loud is important to find the natural pauses,
and the places where you need to guide the reader.

A common beginners' error is to end-stop all lines instead of using enjambment -- where
the grammatical sense continues beyond the line end onto the next line -- which can
make a big difference to the flow. In rhyming poetry enjambment can make the rhyme
less obtrusive.

Poetry has been described as writing where the author has more control than the
typesetter over the finished presentation. Even so, it's important to think carefully before
you start using complex designs. You may think that your work looks better centered, or
with every second line indented, but what does this actually add to the poem? A weak
poem will not be improved by fancy layout.

Of course it can be fun to fit a piece about a mouse into the animal shape or to give it a
long tail, as Lewis Carroll did, but is it more than a gimmick? Remember that poetry is,
to a great extent, a verbal art form: do you really want your poem to rely on visual
presentation?

Sound. I've already suggested reading out loud, but it's so important that I have no
hesitation in repeating myself. The sound of poetry is fundamental, and unless you read
each draft out loud again and again you cannot begin to make the best choices. By
which I mean choices of vocabulary, punctuation, line breaks: they are all so tightly
interwoven that they can hardly be considered separately.

Incidentally, reading out loud also helps with proof reading, which is fundamental: it's
extremely irritating to see an otherwise effective poem ruined by typographic errors. If
the poets care so little for their own work that they aren't prepared to use a dictionary or
spell checker, why should I be interested in it?

Finally, a few more points that you need to be on the lookout for:

Clichés: 'Emerald green hills' and 'wintry winds' have been described so often
that they should be avoided, as should 'poetical' words like 'heart', 'soul',
'moonlight' and 'love'. They may be fine in parody, but it's very hard to write
something new and serious using such worn vocabulary.
 Internally consistent images: metaphors and similes are a poet's tools, but
they need to have some kind of internal logic. Consider 'the train disappeared
into the tunnel like a mouse into its hole'. It's true that the tunnel entrance might
be like a mouse hole, but can the train be like a mouse? It isn't shaped like a
mouse, nor does it move like one. Try and be as objective as possible about your
comparisons and images. Will they work for other people?

Appropriate vocabulary: you may consider that moggy, pussy, cat and feline
are synonyms, but I don't think you could necessarily use them all in a serious
poem.

Superfluous adjectives and adverbs: often the image comes across more
effectively if the reader has to work a bit: don't use a list of adjectives where one
judiciously chosen one will work as well. Each adjective tends to weaken the
noun; each adverb weakens the verb.

Showing or telling: if you say 'I was happy' I have to take your word for it. If,
instead, tell me the symptoms of your happiness -- how you saw the world
around you, how your body felt etc -- I can deduce your happiness for myself and
empathize with it.

Don't forget that all these factors must work together. Form, content, vocabulary,
layout... all of them are part of a poem, and if used well, the whole will be greater than
the sum of the parts.

Related Articles:

The Benefit of Critique Groups, by Michele Acker

http://www.writing-world.com/basics/groups.shtml

Fundamentals of Fiction III: Critique Groups and Writing Groups , by Marg Gilks
http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/fiction03.shtml

Giving and Receiving Critiques, by Dawn Copeman

http://www.writing-world.com/dawn/dawn09.shtml

How Online Critiquing Can Help Your Writing, by Moira Allen

http://www.writing-world.com/basics/critique.shtml

Processing Feedback, by Joni Cole

http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/feedback.shtml

Critique Group Links and Information

http://www.writing-world.com/links/critique.shtml

Copyright © 2001 Gwyneth Box

This article may not be reprinted without the author's written permission.

Born in Britain but a long-term resident of Spain, Gwyneth Box has been writing both
poetry and prose for many years. She began to seek publication in the late 1990s, since
when her work has appeared in magazines and anthologies, and she has received
various awards for her poetry. Her background includes infomation technology and
teaching, and she now edits the Patchword.com writers' resource website.

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