Giving critiques

How to give constructive critism without offending anybody and allowing the poet to improve with out feeling stupid or unworthy.

I write this from my own cast of knowledge, it does not span very deep and nor would I say it is very important but this write will assist poets across Allpoetry to improve their coments by offering assistance to fellow members and finding new friends. I will try not to go of topic as I often do in these such cases and I will try not to make it very long or else you may tier of reading and decide not to. All of which is a case of critique that you can feed back to me. Yes! Infact thats what I want you to do, I want you to read this column and give me critiques at the end on how to improve or edit this to make it better. Good now I will begin.

Poetry is a way of life not an art, if you do not know how to live it you will not last very long. That is why, as poets, we must offer our assistance when it is needed and without being asked. It is just comon curtesy like saying' please' and 'thank-you', it should come without having to be thought about. So, what makes a good critique?

A good critique is someone who can distinguish the line between what can work and what does work. Often we will read poetry by friends or strangers that need some polish, there are bits that need changing to help the flow or some dodgy rythms, this is not polishing work this is editing. Polish is making it better perhaps changing whole lines or even a stanza of two but keeping the first line thought of the same. This is very important and the 'original line' should never be deleted. It does not have to be the first line of the poem it could be the last or the fifth or any other line. What it must be if the first line thought of that gave the poet its insperation to write.

So, the first step to leaving a good critique is to see whether or not the poem needs to be edited or polished. Once you have choosen which one it is tell them how they could do this. For example if it needs editing where does it need changing, what words need to be replaced or deleted. If it needs polish be honest with them why does it need polish? Where should they polish? Does the whole thing need re-doing?

You get my drift. Next you need to look at the flow of the peice -if it has rythm now is the time to bring this up- does the flow come smoothly or are the areas that need re-phrasing or changing? Are the rythmes well suited or do they seemed forced as if just placed in there because it was needed as if there was no thought behind it. Again you must be honest to the poet because you are trying to help them improve.

Lastly tell them if you enjoyed it. If you didn't why not? What was wrong or was it just not to your taste but you admire the effort put into it? If you did enjoy it why? What areas did you like/dislike most tell them this in as much detail as you can after giving them ways to improve it's always nice to know that your efforts have been seen and that it isn't all totaly rubbish.

All this makes for a brillaint critique! Best of luck and i'd love to hear how you get on using this method. If you have any ideas/critiques about this please let me know so I can make the needed adjustments! Thanks for reading:
Dryad Enya