POETRY REVIEW CONTEST - DISCUSSION THREAD

What a gem - you are!! And the contest, too! I'm wearing nothing but a smile!!!

(now it's a smirk)

bewy intewesting.

Really cool idea. It will be a fun learning experience for me... actually already has been as I've read through the provided links and am already thinking differently about how i look at a poem. And, I think the exercise will also help me write more meaningful poems as well... well, I can dream.

Great idea! Nice selection of poems, too.

THANK you!
(been watching for this, could be my ticket to a date with my muse)
so, my question is about who can play;
".....must be members of AW in good standing as of September 18, 2014, and remain so during the contest"

needless to say, I have lurked more than participated for the last little while,
but this place always shines a homing beacon for the voices in my head
where do I need to stand, in order to play?

So just to clarify, we have until October 17 to enter our reviews?

I know, you stated that very clearly in the main thread; it's my own eyes and brain that glaze over!

I am re-reading the poems and having a think. When I first read them there was one I didn't like, it stood out for me, and now I don't feel that way about any of them!

Re-reading helps. I also appreciated something I read in one of the articles about critiques and reviews that you posted: it's harder to write a good good review than it is to write a good bad review.

Probably for the same reason it's harder, or seems harder, to write a good poem about something that is wholely good, beautiful, or otherwise positive, whereas writing a good poem about something bad or something that has mixed impact along the pos./neg. scale -- words seem to come more easily there.

Just my thoughts of the moment, while I continue to procrastinate starting my entry.

Kylabelle said:

Re-reading helps. I also appreciated something I read in one of the articles about critiques and reviews that you posted: it's harder to write a good good review than it is to write a good bad review.

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Yep. I started on one I really liked... ran into the same headwind. Wonder what that says about us/me?

Good point. I think I meant to say that it seems easier to find words for why I don't like something in a poem, than for why I do.

But I'm not even sure that's so; I know with these, in at least two instances, I have things to say about some qualities I find pleasing -- which itself is a weak and flaccid word choice but I'm tired and not going to reach for specificity right now.

Often when I read a poem I do really like the only things I can think to say are not very insightful. I loved it, it moved me, oh wow. Like that.

I think it's my 'insight' that I often do not trust to hit the mark, which makes me timid to express it with any real conviction. I am mainly speaking of insight into what the poem is saying... at least to me. There remains other elements to review of course, but poems I like say something to me. Overall, the process opens doors I didn't realize were there.

Don't take this wrong, but don't you think you ARE the mark? What a poem says to you is hitting the mark, it's speaking to you, you are the necessary other half of the equation.... Meaning, if the poem lands, it is doing its job and you as the reader or listener are getting it, and by definition getting it "right". My insecurity is always to do with not getting anything from a poem, one that others clearly are finding value in.

I think schools have messed us all up. No offense to any schools out there....

Literary critics are endlessly telling other literary critics how they are wrong about everything.

kuwisdelu said:

Literary critics are endlessly telling other literary critics how they are wrong about everything.

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We won't listen to them. They can talk to each other and imagine it's important to anyone else.

Kylabelle said:

Don't take this wrong, but don't you think you ARE the mark? What a poem says to you is hitting the mark, it's speaking to you, you are the necessary other half of the equation.... Meaning, if the poem lands, it is doing its job and you as the reader or listener are getting it, and by definition getting it "right". My insecurity is always to do with not getting anything from a poem, one that others clearly are finding value in.

I think schools have messed us all up. No offense to any schools out there....

Click to expand...

True enough Kyla, without the benefit of knowing the poet's mind, we are left with how the poem resonates with each of us personally. And I think we agree philosophically that the reader is essential--the relationship between poem and reader being interdependent. Perhaps we should never know the poet's true 'intent'... especially once we've found our own meaning in the words?

Ideally, I think they would inform each other.

yessir