In March, we talked at some length in Wednesdays@One about how to critique a poem, someone else's or your own. Since that is part of what we try do week in, week out at W@1, everybody thought it would be a good idea to have that discussion. I wrote a kind of short primer for the subject (posted here on 3.5.19) that I'd like to expand on now.
Something I've noticed at W@1 over time is that we tend to respond to a colleague's poem by trying to re-write it for the author. (I have been as guilty of this as the next W@1-er.) We suggest a different topic or a different take on a topic. We point out certain aspects of punctuation that we'd change, or line length, choice of words, syntax, usage, grammar, rhyme or lack thereof, meter and rhythm, stanza format, tone, point of view . . . you get the idea. Everybody responds somewhat differently to any given poem and, with the best of intentions, advises the poet how to rewrite it. Sometimes, we even debate among ourselves how best to rewrite somebody's poem while that somebody sits on the sidelines and watches! (I know I have been guilty of that.)
To a certain extent, this kind of critique can be helpful, especially if it's delivered at the right time. It's the standard approach for most writing workshops I've experienced. The poem is read aloud, there is a moment or two of silence as the hearers gather their thoughts, and then bam! The threads are pulled until the whole poem unravels in a kind of shoulda-coulda-woulda critique. I can't think of them at the moment, but I've read some pretty good poems by some pretty well-thought of poets about this very subject--enduring a workshop shark attack.
So long as the writer of the poem in question maintains a kind of esprit de corps with the critiquing group, and a thick skin, he or she can use what's useful in this kind of critique and ignore what's not useful. But it's not always easy to separate the useful from the not useful when you're deep in a thicket of suggestions for rewriting what you've already spent a good many hours thinking about and revising.
Which is what leads me back to this subject. How can W@1, as a group and a cohort, avoid the steady drumbeat of the pile-on, the "nice-effort-but-this-is-how-you-should-write-the-poem" comment? First off, I'm not sure I want to suggest that we abandon even the picayune criticism, for nitpicking can help a writer see his or her poem through other eyes in ways that can sometimes be helpful--sometimes. And every reader at W@1 (or in any workshop or salon) should feel not just free, but obligated to share his or her point of view in this respect. Writers need the feedback whether they acknowledge this or not.
What I want to propose is a small change in how we critique each other's work. I want to propose that we hold off telling a writer how to rewrite his or her poem to suit us personally; in fact, hold off telling the writer what we think the poem means or how we experience it or why it doesn't work as written (or, for that matter, why we think it DOES work as written). Hold off, that is, long enough to ask the writer about the poem, how the writer conceived it, what obstacles or other difficulties the writer experienced trying to compose the piece, when and how the writer felt the poem begin to gel, why a certain image or word order or adjective or verb or other part of speech was chosen. Indeed, hold off long enough to hear the writer tell why the poem was written in the first place!
What I am proposing is that we start by interviewing the writer of the poem we've just heard, so we can dig below its surface (the draft brought to W@1) for the writerly soil in which it came to be. To that end, here are some questions that might help us all move in that direction in our next sessions.
- Ask about the experience of writing the poem. Did it unfold in one sitting? Is this version a second, third or later draft? Did a line or phrase come first, or a rhythm, or an image, an idea? Was it easy to write, was the writing stop-and-go?
- Ask about the writer's understanding of the poem. Did your "intent" change as the drafting progressed? That is, did the creative process become a discovery process, too? (Another way to ask this question: Did the poem turn out the way you expected?)
- Ask how the writer feels about the poem now. Now that you've read it aloud, and then heard it read back to you, are there any aspects of the poem that sound especially "right" to you? Any that sound like they might need more work?
- Ask about the origin of the poem. Aside from the project in question, why did this poem (or subject) occur to you to write?
- Ask about the form and figures of the poem. Ask how or at what point certain figures (metaphors, similies, expletives, interjections, rhymes, modifiers, etc.) revealed themselves during the writing process. Ask how or at what point lines, stanzas, paragraphs, meters, etc. began to take shape and to inform the writing of the poem.
You may have ulterior motives for asking such questions--perhaps you noticed an ambiguity, a difficult metaphor, a misaligned rhythm, an inconsistent tone, faulty grammar or usage. Maybe you think the poem isn't yet a poem or that a line or stanza is unnecessary or detracts from the poem. The writer needs to know your concern; but you need to know how the inconsistency or strange image or uneven rhythm or change in tone got there in the first place--because it's possible that you are misreading the poem!
Finally, before you tell the writer how to correct his or her work, consider two things:
- Does the item really need correcting (i.e., is it wrong, given the poem), or am I just insisting on what I think makes for a good poem?
- Would my suggestion improve the effort appreciably?
A big part of writing of any kind is the writer's motive--not necessarily what he or she or the poem "means," but what the writer is trying to accomplish. When critiquing, it's better to start by trying to understand the writer's motive and experience before we suggest improvements.
No comments:
Post a Comment