I received a critique on one of my poems today. OK, so that's not news, but I'm not going to stop writing here. Someone read a few of my poems about abuse (really, what else is there on my page) and basically told me I had no right to post a poem about abuse from the former victims point of view. This person said that, from experience, they find that over time a victim sensationalizes what happens to them, and in writing (and especially rhyming), tend to change what happened to suit the "piece at hand".1
Hmmmmm.....2
At first I was angry and started typing a response, but something made me hit the delete key (against my will). I took a deep breath, got a cuppa coffee, and sat back down. I then went on this person's page and read some of the stuff that was there. Can't say I am suprised by what I read. All sorts of stuff about "quieting false victims".
So what did I do? I wrote. Then I wrote some more. I write because it is what I do. It is who I am, and it is what has saved me.3
So, I guess this person can look forward to reading more of my "crap". I've been in a bit of a dry spell lately, but the drought is over. I feel sorry for this person, not angry.
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I think that you are right to feel sorry for people like this. According to the logic of your critic a holocaust survivor would have no right to write an account of the holocaust. It might be overly dramatic if they did. I think unless you are writing an affidavit, changing facts slightly is fine. Furthermore, in abuse cases, the victim and the perpetrator do not agree on what was abusive. Part of this is the psychology of the abuser and the thinking errors that they have developed to allow them to carry out their abuse.
I am not an abuse victim. I do believe that I have the 'right' to write a poem, rhyming or not, and if I choose to, I can write it from the perspective of the victim. It can then be judged on its own merits.
I have rarely left a comment saying that someone's work was crap. I agreed with someone early on that a piece of work was crap and I read a poem that glorified the mutilation of women and left a similar comment.
I think that I could have expressed my revulsion in a better way.
You are a good poet and have plenty of good to say. Don't let close minded readers get you down. Keep up the good work.
Mike
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