[New-Poetry] Poetic dialogue? To criticize or not.

[Anny Ballardini]

I think it is very difficult. Difficult in both cases, as a teacher or as a student. Since there are no parameters, what is good and what is bad? Probably, please notice my reticence in being more specific, any kind of criticism can work somehow, I am referring to the students' observations, but the teacher should draw a final line. It is easy to imagine the variety of reactions, s/he hates me, s/he is too oldish, too avant-garde, too..., too... but you have to give substance to what was written by offering your opinion. That is fundamentally why there are the students and there is one teacher. 
Will your criticism be personal? Hopefully so, 
that is another why those are _your_ students and not someone else's.
The teacher should also be able to deal with the leader of the group, in one way or the other.

I believe in the old school, even if I avoid meter.
  From: faustina1 at aol.com 
  Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 9:11 PM


  I haven't posted here in eons and yet this discussion is pulling me in, largely because I have been conducting class workshops for maybe 40 years and am still not convinced of their value.  I try to get people to find something positive about each poem and to make constructive suggestions; they need to do both.  But it often turns out to be the case that there's a strong voice in the class--often a somewhat charismatic person--who tends to lead the poetics of the class down his alley.  I really want each to develop in his or her particular direction, but the class leader's principles tend to infiltrate everyone's poems.  And the Hallmarkers are completely impervious; they simply do not hear the suggestions.   I would like to think of or discover some completely new way of workshopping.  Janet

   
  From: LauraHeidy at aol.com
  Sent: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 2:01 PM


  In a message dated 12/28/2006 1:58:49 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, skip at louisiana.edu writes:
    I’m not proposing this model, such as it is, in lieu of other aproached, but I’m interested in what others have to say, if anything, on this issue.

  How does one's writing ever get better if no one ever tells them it's not yet good enough or why?

  I tend to wiggle when someone tells me something I've written is good....but I tend to work more when they tell me it is not - especially if they are kind enough to point out why it isn't.  Personally speaking, it's easy to get too close to something being worked on and the mistakes or  the poor choices I've made don't always reach up and slap me in the face like they will  to someone without a time/effort-stake in the poem.  While I agree that praise is a wonderful thing to get, I must also add that sometimes criticism is a wonderful thing to get as well.  I loved it when I thought my kids were being perfect angels at school, I hated hearing different, but had I never actually heard different they may never have ended up being well behaved in the end.  If I remain unaware of a problem, be it a child behavioral problem or a poetic-type problem, I would never have the opportunity to fix it or to learn from it.

  Perhaps it works if you only praise the good stuff and ignore the not-so-good stuff, but I think that's taking a chance that people will not understand what is not being said.  I don't think people reach for things they think they have already attained.

  But, then again, that's just me and my opinion, and while I really do try not to be a "flamer" I do get opinionated sometimes and mouthy about those opinions.  I really am sorry if it got misunderstood or came across as a nasty old cummings-hating biatch.

  Lo
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