With the sub reaching 50,000 users, averaging around 100 new users, 10,000 pageviews and 1,500 unique pageviews every single day, I thought I’d write a love letter to all poetry newbs.
Being a mod is hard, much harder than I thought it would be. I have to tell people to follow the rules, for those of you that don’t know me: the proudest moment of my childhood was when, after refusing to do homework for so long, our teacher handed everyone a homework sheet, except me. I proudly kept that up until I left school at twelve. Rules, especially those enforced that require me to perform a difficult task, are further down my list of least favourite things than being kicked in the shin.
Although, I’d like to talk to you about the only rule I have to enforce on a regular basis, rule 4. I don’t want to have to remove anyone’s work for supplying feedback that is below the expected standard, infact, the entire mod team would be exceptionally happy if we never had to do that. But with the size of the sub and the consistent stream of new users everyday, there are many that either don’t have the confidence to critique, or simply have not read the rules, or guidelines.
More so than ever, I have been having to remove posts for simply supplying feedback that is perhaps: ‘hey, I like your piece, this bit was nice, I like that bit too’ - which is all good and well to say, and is encouraging to other users of the poetry sub, but we simply cannot accept that as feedback. The idea behind the rule is that we all help each other to get better at our craft, your feedback should offer the author of the piece a little something to help them improve their work. The more you are able to offer, the more people will respect you for the effort you have put in, and in return, put more effort into giving feedback on your pieces of work.
You are the new generation of poets, you have the potential to be well respected in your chosen art. You are the next evolution of a long running tradition, the very crest of the wave. Developing your talent and honing your skills through workshopping and creating work, work which is unique to you; a single instance in a field of glittering gems. The likelihood that any one of us could create the next great work of a generation, is slim, but entirely possible. It’s there on the tip of your tongue, in the beds of your finger nails, the folds of your grey matter - we can do it, but we need to work together to reach those heights.
Poetry is all in the preparation, putting your time into creating quality critique is preparation for creating your next great piece. When you spend the time to identify the possible faults in another’s piece of work, you are training yourself to identify those faults in your own work - that is not to say that you cannot be appreciative of another’s work, it is simply that through constructive criticism, we can build greater things together.
I see a lot of people saying that they feel that they don’t know enough to give good critique, I’d really like to blow that myth out of the water, straight past the clouds and off into the endless nothingness of space. Realistically, your insight into another’s work is valid, regardless of your technical knowledge. You’re able to explain your perspective and understanding of a piece, when you take the time to flesh out your explanation, it is more than likely that you will have given the author something useful that can help them build on what they have.
Writing a poem is like putting your head into a bucket. You’ve gone through a lot of effort to put the bucket on your head and you’re quite proud of your achievement, but your view is consumed by the bucket. You need someone whose head is not in the bucket, to tell you whether you’ve put it on your head correctly. When you put up a piece for critique, you’re asking ‘is my bucket on straight?’.
TL;DR: Through creating quality feedback we are all helping each other to become better at our craft.
P.S. Don’t forget that we have an amazing Wiki, with most of what you need to know to get started in the world of poetry :)
Submitted October 28, 2019 at 06:03PM by ParadiseEngineer https://ift.tt/2BQNTyG
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