Description:

Workshop for 'serious' poets who are ready to start honing their craft. More critical feedback and in depth critique will be offered by each other and from the Moderators/Leaders.

Pamela (Pamela A. Lamppa) (Co-Leader)
Chez (CCFire) (Co-Leader)
Jess (weirdelf) (Co-Leader)
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WORKSHOP - Critique Skills:

DON'T BE INTIMIDATED- THIS WORKSHOP IS ALL ABOUT US LEARNING TO HELP EACH OTHER IMPROVE OUR WORK, CRITIQUE AND UNDERSTANDING OF POETRY. IT TAKES CRITIQUE, THE LIFEBLOOD OF NEOPOET TO A NEW LEVEL. ALL SERIOUS POETS WILL BENEFIT.

Workshop commences - 16 May 2011

This workshop is intended to build skills in serious critical feedback. Participants will not take into account the poet's feelings when presenting critique and ideas for improvement of a piece, although all site and workshop guidelines regarding abuse and personal attacks will be firmly adhered to. This is not an adversarial workshop, it is a tough workshop to improve ourselves in critique in order to help other poets and ourselves in our craft.

Up to 10 participants. First come first in, anyone who misses a place will be reserved a place in succeeding workshops. Applicants to apply by Private Message to weirdelf.

Each participant brings one poem in rough draft form to the workshop. Submitted sequentially, we deal with each poem before moving on to the next. As there probably won't be time in 14 days to cover all 10 poems the leaders will choose a few of the submissions to be worked on, unless there is a determination amongst the participants to extend the workshop beyond the allotted 14 days. The emphasis is on the critique more than the individual poems.

The Process.

A commitment of 14 days is required, you'll need to check in as often as possible. [For those people with limited access to computer time please contact Dan (Hooded Stranger) or me (weirdelf) and we will look into arranging alternatives.]

Each participant will write a brief critique of the poem describing what the poem is about, what it means to you personally, any “layers of meaning” or “subtext” you detect, how it works and why, how it doesn't work and why and suggestions for improvement.

Critiques will scrutinize form, content and originality. Highly subjective responses are acceptable but must be explained. The entire validity of a poem may be questioned.
This will be followed by a round of critique of the critiques by each participant.

The poet may respond, accepting critique or arguing a defense, explaining intent, then posting edits, if any. The purpose here is to allow the poet to interact in a constructive manner with the criticism, not to launch a debate.

Each participant will provide a final critique after edits, if any, are made.

Each participant will write a final critique of the critiques.

Spelling, punctuation and grammar in critiques will be subject to correction.

This may sound like a lot of work but the emphasis is on succinctness. Original critiques will probably not exceed 200 words (a mere Facebook posting [grins]) and following critiques much shorter.