How To Critique Poetry - A Simple Structure

For those who are unaware, I run a weekly poetry critique class on the Steemitschool Poetry Challenge. You can listen to recordings of the lessons here, if you are so inclined.

Before going onward, I want to stress, once more, that "critique" does not mean finding flaws with something, but being analytic about it. Critique is the art of giving feedback. Critique, when offered to someone whom you can converse with directly, is meant to share what you think of their work, and hopefully help them improve.

Also, final words of encouragement before we proceed: Everyone can read poetry. If you can read poetry, you can comment on it.
Everyone can read poetry, and comment on it, but not everyone trusts themselves to do so. This post is here to help you take the plunge.

Why Critique?

One of the things I keep repeating in these lessons is that critique is worth doing. Most simply and intuitively, most people appreciate it when their work receives the attention and time commitment shown when one receives a critique. It shows you someone cared. It shows you someone understood you, or at least tried to understand you. It can even show you things in your work you might have intended on some level, but not noticed, or didn't intend, yet still adds layers to your work.

And going by the golden rule, of do unto others, as you'd like done unto you, if you would appreciate getting critique so much, why aren't you spreading the love? You should.
Also, the more people see good critique going around, and see it properly rewarded, the likelier they are to engage in providing critique of their own.

Furthermore, the process of giving critique teaches you, giving you the tools you will later use to improve your own writing. You will learn to look more closely at your punctuation, at the way you use imagery, and will be better able to go over your poem and see if its structure benefits the content, or detracts from it.

If you critique poetry, you improve at two things: Writing poetry, and giving critique in general, which can then help you improve in other things, should you critique those.

The Two Different Forms of Critique:

This distinction is artificial to a degree, like all such distinctions. But like most taxonomies, it's here to help us learn. It's a tool to make things clearer.

The two things of critique as I see them are Editing Critique and Impressionistic Critique (which can also be thought of as "Holistic Critique").

Editing Critique is the form of critique where you go over a piece, almost always before publication, and you look at it on the word, sentence, and stanza levels, one by one. You make sure that rhyming structure is adhered to, you point out spelling mistakes, grammatical issues, and punctuation issues.
You point out words that don't fit the tone of the piece, or which break up the flow of the sentence or stanza, etc.

In editing critique, you comb the piece for these small issues, trying to tighten it up. In poetry in particular, cutting a few words or changing a word or two can change the entire tone of the piece. Editing critique focuses on the details.

Impressionistic Critique, well, it fits the other name, Holistic Critique, on the upmost level - while editing critique focuses on the details, ranging from word to stanza levels, then impressionistic critique looks at the stanza as its basic unit (and there are of course exceptions), and mostly looks at things in context of the entire piece.

In Impressionistic Critique, what you provide is less constructive criticism on how to change the piece, and more, well, impressions - what you, as a reader, got out of a piece. What stood out to you, in terms of imagery, of metaphors, of meaning. You do what people tend to do in Literature classes, and go over what you think the piece means, and what it means to you, what it's trying to do.

Except, unlike most Literature classes, there are no wrong answers. So why do you do this? Assuming the author of course knows what they wrote about? Because the author doesn't know what others will see. And because writing is also means of communication, and poetry can be a discussion-starter (rather than a discussion-ender) so start that discussion.

As "critique" meaning constructive feedback on this level, you tend to look over mismatch of images or messages. This form of critique tends to most likely happen on published pieces.

Providing Editing Structure / Editing Questionnaire:

In this section, I'm finally going to provide you an example set of questions to go over as you try to provide critique to poems. This is non-exhaustive. And not everything here is mandatory. It's here to try and provide you a framework to *start* off of.

Remember, first of all, to read the poem in its entirety, certainly for the Impressionistic Critique. You can still find typos and such as you read along a piece, though.

Editing Critique Questionnaire:

(Note: If you're a non-native language speaker and don't feel sure about grammatical issues, skip on providing most Editing Critique.)

• Punctuation - If punctuation is used, is it consistent? If people use commas, then they should use them everywhere they belong, for instance.
  Is the punctuation used grammatically correct? If not, point it out.

• Spelling - Are there spelling mistakes? Such as writing "here" instead of "hear", or "breath" instead of "breathe"? Are there inconsistent spellings? Such as using both "color" and "colour"? If so, point them out. Though authors should look over their writing and try to iron these out before handing a piece to editors, things can slip by.

• Verse Consistency - If the poem uses a specific form, such as a sonnet, or uses a specific form of rhyming convention (ABBA, for instance), make sure that it is consistent throughout. Alliterative structure as well.
  Note that there are reasons to break these up, but start by looking for them and go from there.

• Weak and Extraneous Lines/Words - Are there words that can be cut out entirely, such as "is" or "the" often are? Are there words that are weak, such as "like" in general, or in specific instances when "like" should be "love", for instance? Are there sentences that just don't feel like they carry their weight?
  This is also where you'd point out that something feels rhyme-led, that you can tell a word or even an entire sentence feels warped because of trying to make it fit the structure chosen.
  In this segment in particular, try to provide alternatives. If you think a sentence or word are weak, explain why, and try to think up an alternative or two.

• Imagery Consistency - Did someone say a sword "smashed" when it should've been "slashed"? Is there talk of a still pond using verbs that evoke a sense of movement and perhaps even turmoil? Does the imagery used in this sentence or stanza not fit the imagery used in a prior stanza. such as moving from imagery of the living world to something too abstract?
  Again, try to go into more details and try to provide ideas of a direction to go in here.

• Flow - This is a bit more amorphous, but refers to the sound of things. To how a stanza flows, and if certain words break it up, sitting all jagged in your mouth in a section that otherwise flows well, or if you think there is a mistmatch between cadence, between flow, and the content described.

• Like Before, But Positive - This is about providing feedback, not about being negative. If you only point out the things that require fixing, people might change the best parts you did not comment on to "fix" the entire piece. Also, if something is great, why not say it? So here you go over images, words, and sentences, and point out which images struck you out with their force, and which word-choices or sentences struck you with their inspired structure or cadence or flow.

Impressionistic Critique Questionnaire:

(Reminder: Read the piece in its entirety before engaging in this type of critique. I don't always do that, but do what I say, not what I do ;-))

• Message - What do you think the message of the piece is? Speak about it. Say what you feel about the message, what you think about the message. Then speak of what you think and feel of how the piece tackles the message.
  If you see segments where the message is too diffuse, too unclear, or where the piece might contradict or detract from the message, say so. Then try to think of how the author might've meant those segments to enhance the message, rather than detract, and speak of why you think it didn't work for you.

• Themes (/Images) - Themes is very much like "Message" above, but not entirely the same. A message can be about the eternity of love, while the themes relate to the love of family, or love in nature. Themes and imagery are closely related. Again, speak of the images the piece evokes in your mind, and what experiences and feelings they relate to for you.
  This is also a good place to point out a line or two that are especially striking.

• Everything Else - Am I cheating? Yes, I am. But in impressionistic writing, you can go anywhere. You can talk about an idea expressed in a single line, such as a mention of Plato's Cave, and have an interesting discussion about it. You can tie the rest of the piece into that one-off mention. Or you can focus on the motifs that keep coming up, or you can see how two disparate images tie into a greater whole.
  Go wild. Critique is an art. You are an artist, when you leave critique, so feel free to go places.

Final Words:

You can give critique. You should give critique. Go forth and give critique.
But remember, your goal is not to have people write your poems, your poetry. Your goal is help people write the best of their poetry. If people don't accept your feedback, that's fine! Your goal is not for them to make the decisions you agree with, but that they consider the impact of the decisions they choose to make.
If someone tells you they disagree with a piece of feedback, don't assume they didn't get it. They did, and they disagree. And it is their piece.

Also, try to see what their goal is for a piece. You can tell people that you know their goal and you don't think it worked, or worked as well as if they had went for something else, but the feedback you give should follow the goals of the piece - a piece about love told from an intimate perspective is quite different from a piece looking at society from a detached standpoint, and the feedback should differ to match.

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Also, remember to come and join us on Thursday, 5-7 PM UTC, for the Poetry Critique Class hosted on Steemit School, details here! If you want to get a piece of your own critiqued, you must link me to a piece you critiqued in the 6 days prior to class, by the day prior to class. Read a detailed explanation of that in the weekly Poetry Class Recording and Notes, such as here.

Check out my latest posts:

• Steemitschool Poetry Class - Critique Thursday Class #4 - 12/04/18 - Recording and Notes
• Standing Still - In Memoriam - A cultural post.

Art and flair courtesy of @PegasusPhysics

Image source.

© Guy Shalev 2018.