ae's profile

About me:  I don’t live to write. I write for a living. It’s a job, not an adventure.  So I’m trying to rediscover the sense of play and mission that made me want to do this in the first place, and that makes me care about teaching and editing.

About my work:  I’m not posting my work up here (so far).  I’m posting POETRY.  Work is stuff I have to write in order to get paid.  Which is not to say I don’t use the term “work” in the vernacular to refer to your work, which I respect as such.

About my critique:  First, if you’re writing for therapy, and you’re putting it out to others to review, you should say so.  Then we can critique your experience and emotional management, instead of your poetry.  If you’re so attached to the…

About me:  I don’t live to write. I write for a living. It’s a job, not an adventure.  So I’m trying to rediscover the sense of play and mission that made me want to do this in the first place, and that makes me care about teaching and editing.

About my work:  I’m not posting my work up here (so far).  I’m posting POETRY.  Work is stuff I have to write in order to get paid.  Which is not to say I don’t use the term “work” in the vernacular to refer to your work, which I respect as such.

About my critique:  First, if you’re writing for therapy, and you’re putting it out to others to review, you should say so.  Then we can critique your experience and emotional management, instead of your poetry.  If you’re so attached to the SOURCE of the poem that you can’t separate from the poem, you maybe shouldn’t set people up by asking for review on it.  because they’re reading your poem, not your experience.  The inspiration of the poem is NOT the poem.  A warm wooly sweater is NOT the cold that made you reach for it.

Second, don’t post sloppy crap.  Just don’t.  Occasional errors happen, but it’s simply wrong to throw some unproofed pack of piffle up there and expect people to pull the poem out of it.  Clean up your errors BEFORE you post.

And my bottom line in critique is this:

Be deliberate.  
Spell how you mean to spell;
when you rhyme, rhyme well;
use assonance with intention and make your lines break meaningfully.  
Respect and revise the work.  
Know the standard conventions, and obey them or break from them with intention.

WHY? Because poetry as a form will lose much of its power if the conventions of spelling, grammar, punctuation and syntax go down the tubes, because we can impart so much meaning in poetry through DEPARTING from those conventions.  It’s why I say not to post sloppy work.  How can we know if you mean to use a misspelling in a particular way, if you are elsewhere doing it inadvertently. The presence of what appear to be inadvertent errors in a poem is always distracting.  Always.  And sometimes it can cause confusion, obscure your meaning, even change your meaning.  So I’m not saying don’t do it “wrong.”  I’m saying don’t do it unconsciously; consider and appreciate the impact of every space and letter, because if you don’t, your reader can’t.  That’s my soapbox.  AE—defending the conscious “misuse” of language for generations to come.

[Thanks to Matt and other Urbis founders.  Still a great concept, even if there are a few bugs in the system…]