z

Young Writers Society


Reviewing Poetry Tips



User avatar
1007 Reviews



Gender: Male
Points: 13831
Reviews: 1007
Thu Nov 20, 2014 12:06 am
TimmyJake says...



Heyyyyy, everybody!

So I have been trying to review poetry more often lately, mostly just because I think reviewing novel chapters have been running me dry (not because of the writers - they're amazing), and I think I just need to break things up for a while and not take any new projects for perhaps a month or so.

What am I going to do?

Yeah, you got it. Review poetry (Duhhhh, Timmy. You already said that). The problem is, while I can somewhat write poetry, I just read a piece in that genre and go, "Uhhhh..." I have no idea what to say at all, and the nitpicks I do find are so simplistic - like telling them they misspelled a word or a line was awkward.

I want to be able to do more. While I know that the only way to get better at reviewing poetry is to, well, review poetry, I want to learn as fast as I can to become a good poetry reviewer.

So if you guys have any reviewing poetry tips - just your favorite tip would make me happy - please give them to me. Who knows? I could be your next reviewer. ;)

Thanks. <3 hopefully I posted this in the right forum
Used to be tIMMYjAKE
  





User avatar



Gender: Female
Points: 300
Reviews: 0
Thu Nov 20, 2014 1:07 am
View Likes
amidnightdreary says...



For what it's worth, I think that critiquing any sort of unstructured poetry is a waste of time for you and the writer. How do you critique something with no conventions? It boils down to being willing to point out when the writer is being cliche or melodramatic, willing to push the writer for something original.

If you're not comfortable with that, focus on things like use of alliteration, assonance, rhyme (intentional or not), allusion, metaphor, meter, etc...

Poetry is a condensed art, restrained or not, and each line is deliberately vague or dense. If you change a word or phrase, you no longer have the same poem.
"Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable."
- Banksy
  





User avatar
745 Reviews

Supporter


Gender: Male
Points: 1626
Reviews: 745
Thu Nov 20, 2014 1:18 am
View Likes
Lumi says...



Content analysis is necessary in poetry reviews.

There are tons of tips on reviewing poetry in the knowledge base on YWS, so if you give those a quick skim, you should have more than enough weapons to tackle poetry. The trick that no one acknowledges yet, though, is that you have to pry into the meaning of poetry before you go telling a writer to change a word or smooth out a sentence for flow. If you don't get the central devil, you can't really mess with his demons.

Beyond that, I have to strongly disagree with dreary above. Poetic techniques like rhyme, meter, assonance, alliteration, etc. are restraints chosen by the poet to further condense and specify the meaning behind their words, but often they're treated as necessities in poetry. In reality, they're challenges. So if someone has forced rhymes, tell them to fix the rhymes or scrap the challenge altogether. Metaphors, though, aren't challenges. They're just the entirety of poetry.

But yeah. Content analysis.
I am a forest fire and an ocean, and I will burn you just as much
as I will drown everything you have inside.
-Shinji Moon


I am the property of Rydia, please return me to her ship.
  





User avatar
32 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 3293
Reviews: 32
Thu Nov 20, 2014 2:30 am
View Likes
thegreyreality says...



I would also agree that it is the content of the poetry that is most needed. Once you are past the banalities of a poem, other things become apparent. And I think correcting the mishaps is important as well, just to let the writer know. Some people write thing in the matter of minutes and paste it on YWS only to find they spelled laughter with an f or something. Others may work incredibly hard on a poem and no long possess the capabilities to see their errors as well. That is true of all writing. Writing kind reviews in poetry is often a sort of disservice to the writer sometimes I think. There are times when a person gets lovely happy reviews on a piece only to be told that it really is a cliche. That can discourage someone. Or there is just no critique at all which in my opinion shouldn't even count as a review. But flow is another part, again, in any writing, that should be talked about as well as tone. What it makes one feel should be said so a writer can see if what they had in mind is being expressed. I've been on and off YWS for three ish years? and reviewing poetry is just sort of something tht changes in each poem and builds as you do more.
  





User avatar
355 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 2099
Reviews: 355
Sun Nov 23, 2014 4:44 pm
View Likes
LadySpark says...



First off, check out The YWS Reviewing Dictionary. It's got an entire article about reviewing poetry. I have two rules when it comes to reviewing poetry.

1. Read it until I get some semblance of understanding to what the poem is.
2. Never ever comment on the stylistic choices of the poet unless it is very evident it wasn't a choice so much as a novice not knowing what they're doing.

Remember when your reviewing poetry that whatever you get from the poem is valid. If the poet is like me, they might not even know themselves exactly what the poem is about and they could be waiting for reviewers like you to tell them. Tell them how the poem made you feel, and what parts didn't work for you in that feeling or idea you've had. No matter how good the poet is, every poem has /something/ that's a little off. Find that something. Even if it's one thing, it might be something other reviewers haven't noticed or something the author himself hasn't caught. When you find that one thing (or multiple things) that is off, the next step is to try and find a way to fix it. Whether it's a change up in the wording, deleting of a stanza all together or just simply switching up the imagery for another stanza, little things like that can make or break a poem.

Like you said in your post, the way to learn how to review poetry is to /review/ poetry. You'll never get anywhere talking about the theory of reviewing. You just have to get out there and do it. Even if you have a rough start, you'll find your reviewing niche. You wouldn't believe how long it took me to figure out how to review poetry. I've spent years reviewing poetry, and am just now feeling like I'm actually good at it. So work hard and review as much as you can, and you'll get there.
hush, my sweet
these tornadoes are for you


-Richard Siken


Formerly SparkToFlame
  





User avatar
355 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 2099
Reviews: 355
Sun Nov 23, 2014 4:57 pm
LadySpark says...



amidnightdreary wrote:For what it's worth, I think that critiquing any sort of unstructured poetry is a waste of time for you and the writer. How do you critique something with no conventions? It boils down to being willing to point out when the writer is being cliche or melodramatic, willing to push the writer for something original.

If you're not comfortable with that, focus on things like use of alliteration, assonance, rhyme (intentional or not), allusion, metaphor, meter, etc...

Poetry is a condensed art, restrained or not, and each line is deliberately vague or dense. If you change a word or phrase, you no longer have the same poem.


@amidnightdreary

For the sake of argument, I thought I'd give you some examples of exactly how you review unstructured poetry.

untitled
A Poem About Love
tracing bedsheets
as was discovered after roman numerals (0-4)
Pretty Face
a poem written with a dying pen and a thriving love


I have more, if you would like. If you're going to only review poetry with structure, you're really going to run out of things to review. There's not a lot of poets out there that don't at least try their hand at free verse. Don't restrain yourself to a certain thing because you're possibly afraid of not understanding the other kinds. That's really unhealthy and you'll never be able to grow that way. Explore the world of poetry in its entirety.
hush, my sweet
these tornadoes are for you


-Richard Siken


Formerly SparkToFlame
  








Don't gobblefunk around with words.
— Roald Dahl