it's three quarters of the way to Wednesday here.
feel free to send some sunshine down here please.
how's the writing going?
there comes a point when you just have to write and share for that single person who you want to write for. whether it be your muse, or your idol, or someone who becomes your mentor, it does not matter. write for them.
critique is useful, only when it is useful critique. if it is garbage, treat it as such. ignore it or delete it. give it a few days though, and then go back and look at it when you have the ability to have new eyes - that slightly distant perspective. there's a possibility that you may find something useful in what they say. if you don't, then ignore it. either it wasn't worth listening to, or you have to grow a little more as a poet before you can see where they're coming from.
either way, keep writing. keep reading. and most importantly, enjoy the process.
and by the way, there used to be specific threads in here somewhere for submitting poetry. just to the forum. you get critique from other poets here, rather than the general public on the site. use those threads. they're awesome. i promise. construction thread. and you can always start your own thread with your poem asking for constructive criticism. that way you are more in charge of what you react to.
good things to watch for in critiques:
specific comments on rhyme, line end breaks, punctuation, grammar, the semantics of poetry itself etc.
bad things that can be ignored:
personal comments i.e. comments on you yourself.
critique should be only on the writing itself. the regulars of this forum i.e. Poets! are the people who are likely to have the most important and useful critiques for you. there are some on the site generally who give reasonable critique, but those oddballs that trickle in with the breeze in the gaps under windows, often don't have specific comments on the writing.
also... someone that says 'you write crap', or 'your writing should be the graffiti under a bridge, or on the wall in an underground sewer' is not giving you useful critique. if they go on to say exactly specifically why, then they might be worth listening to. otherwise, ignore them.
when i was worrying about what others said about my writing, nervous to the extent of not wanting to put anything in the public eye including on the forums, i had a standard that i measured the critiques against. if it did not feel right to me, then i put it on the back burner. either to ignore, or to look at at some point in the distant future when i was ready to understand what was said.
sometimes i put poems up that were very close to my heart. they were the hardest to step back from and to listen carefully to the critiques. i found it easier to put stuff into the public eye that i purposely chose to be there. that way i knew critique was coming and i could accept it easier. once i'd done that a few times, i became used to how critique worked. what was useful, and what was useless.
any useless, unspecific critique was ignored.
that's how i grew my thicker skin and was able to better deal with comments.
i've waffled. *smile* hopefully something in here makes a bit of sense to you and is useful for you. i hope it is.
like i said before, keep writing and reading and enjoying the process. that's the most important thing, in my opinion.
