I see your point of view, Jess,A poem is taken as a whole : form + content, The critique should be how well one supports the other, Most poetry is personal, and a critique that trivializes content often does same to the author.

Joe

Lest we forget:

po·et·ry
noun
\ˈpō-ə-trē, -i-trē also ˈpȯ(-)i-trē\

Definition of POETRY

: writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm

Merriam-Webster on Facebook

Screw "gestalt." I speak fluent German. It means FORM.

Okay, my friend, I am fair and open minded, and all I can say is that I am right ,and you are wrong. You won't say "Uncle" will you. Du gibst mir Kopfschmerzen . Ich brauche eine Aspirine zu nehmen! :Gestalt indeed.

Good luck on your workshops. I have been reading many posts. Impressive.

Think about what we have discussed above.

Be well and carpe diem, ;)

just reread the revised guidelines and you are correct in stating that they no longer discourage commenting on content. But I still think to do so is to invite hurt feelings as one person's rose might smell like sewage to another.I personally don't care too much for the content of the few modern authors I've read but that is just a personal opinion as many of their stuff is praised to heaven by others. So I will continue to Not comment on content much unless it is an attack on a particular person or group............stan

I say bravo that we're still in a relatively free country, where we can agree to disagree, write poems in whatever cliche, rhyme or free verse on any content we choose and still develop our friendship.

~A

What I don't understand in the four years I've been here, how people get goated into these debates. perception is what we all have, which is the domestication of a life. if we look close enough we will disagree on many things and agree on many others. to debate on how another person should think is a waste of vital energy. I say continue in your own way, because you are happy there, that is your heaven. yet my heaven might be different but it's mine. questions are the keys to life. The answer is not always what we might think and so what. accept it or not thats your trip. So the hell with it be you and I'll be me and that's how the world goes round. Isn't that cool, when I look at you I don't see me, when you look at me you don't see you. PERFECT!

taoism
Eddie

that E N D S
W E L L ... well
Bravo thank the Almighty... I wasn't the scorp... here...

Ha!..... "get goaded into these dialogs", Joe? A few things come into my mind:

1. Human beings are free to engage in whatever they want (at least on the internet, and in these types of groups). Eh?

2. Human beings have a very useful *tool* to develop: dialog and the monologue that goes around and around one's head.. Writing poems or conversing, even arguing helps us to refine ourselves in our engagement with :"self" and "other".

3. Human beings have the ability to change our perceptions.....hence the subject matter, our responses to one another and our core beliefs on which we base our very being-ness. A very uniquely and precious human ability, I might add.

4. Everyone's mileage may very, depending where one is on their own physical, mental, emotional, spiritual evolutionary spiral of awareness.

Personally, I am quite able to sustain many dialogs simultaneously (some quite contentious), write poetry, be engaged in the world that manifests endless self & other fear and hatred, and have intimate relationships. I think we become too lopsided if we're only engaged in trying to *survive*..... individually and as a species. We lose our sense of commonality and respect for life and liberty, even
as we have endless topics to speak of.....cto write poetic content.

~A

and this is only my view , when you ctit someone's choice of subject matter, you are doing it because it isn't, something you enjoy. Which means if you think it's acceptable to crit that, then you are forcing your personal taste on someone else.

If you are writing a crit on vocabulary, metre, etc, you are actually doing something to help the writer improve.

lou

I have now become useless in talking about any poem piece or write put on Neopoet or any place as such.
I am not well versed in the correct forms of poetry, as this was one subject not taught at my school and I left early to join the Royal Air Force at 15 so my English suffered also.
I have in the past as is my feelings, commented only on content, and left the English and Form to those that studied it like Jess and the Professor and a few others.
I had a book edited by our Richard (Moonman) because he was good at doing so.
POINT:- I can see a Picasso and know how it should look I can also see a Turner and understand the colours and many differing artist..
NOW:- We as poets paint with our words and these are an individual thing, Esker writes his way, as does Cat, Jess and Myself and any of the many poets we have here.
The ability to stand with them and realise that sometimes a change in a word may express their unique way, is sometimes needed, this is a critique of the content but I term this type of critique as a good thing, that we can see through their eyes and feel the message they have been giving with their own words.
All critique is welcome as long as this is what it is, in truth and learning.
As Jess says the rules are there they are guide lines as to our limits according to Form, Grammar and all things that are poetic, just let us learn to think before we add our comments to a poem no matter who it is.
Yours Ian.T

Good grief!

Sometimes we're Charlie Brown, with that proverbial football, sometimes we're Lucy, promising not to take the football away before the kick.

After awhile and most of the time (after a while) it just sounds like so much blah blah blah.

And so do our poems, if not for engaging in the critique of the content.

Aren't you glad I'm back in the mix? Lol. See you all next time.

~A

At the risk of repeating myself, Typos and bad grammer, should be brought to the author's attention. But it is the author's right to write about what ever they want. Our job is to help them to write that poem to the best of thier ability.

lou

Poor ol' stan done lost the thread
too much happening in his head
whose emptiness allows brain to rattle
and thus put out such silly prattle
Guess this is what I get for jumping from shop to here lol...........stan

in reference to something Stan said earlier, there is a thin line between critiquing the content and critiquing the author. As long as a critique refers to the poem and whether it needs improvement, and how that can be achieved, what ever the subject matter is, I don't have a problem.

Lou

If they can't take a joke!

Eddie

But you can discuss this subject all you like, people will still critique as they see fit.

Lou

I've referred to ad nauseum Salman Rushdie's quote--our motto on Neopoet t-shirts. In the sense that a poem is so despicable, derisive and divisive that one is outraged to think that that is the poet's nexus, it all depends on how one chooses to handle it, doesn't it? Ignore it because...or condemn it loudly.

Seems to me that's a difficult thing to do. I'm confrontational In my old age, and the politics of silence
never did work, except for peaceful mass demonstrations against those who would plunder our souls.

There's a sharp edge to everything.... when does poetry become an endless pity party... "woe is me"?
Or a thinly disguised rabid preacher's pulpit? Why do we hide behind our *killer instincts* in poems? Do we write lurid and suggestive poems because we like to titillate? It's that very edge that defines us and our poetry. The two, after all that is said and done, are not inseparable, or are they?

A reality-check every once in awhile is a good thing. Is this the best we can be without looking closely at what we say and do, what we write and why we write it? Is this as far as I can go in my own evolution as a human being?

Just some thoughts I scatter....

Peace,
~A

What about critique of content being about expressing your approval or disapproval of the content? And yes, I've found some friends whose love poetry is like a box of cliche stirred with a dirty spoon, but still is poetry.

Google the following lnks.

1. CONTENT AND FORM IN POETRY: Link+

1. Be Your Best: Reading Poetry
www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/markport/best/poetry.htmCached - Similar
Block all www.uncp.edu results
Finally, determine how the content and form work together to create the poem's meaning. Think of a poem as an equation: form + content = meaning. The term ...

1. Poetry analysis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry_analysisCached - Similar
Poetry analysis is the process of investigating a poem's form, content, and history in an informed way, with the aim of heightening one's own and others' ...

GESTALT ;
1. What is Gestalt? Poetry from Uruguay
www.g-gej.org/3-3/poetryen.htmlCached - Similar
Block all www.g-gej.org results
Nov 19, 2003 – Poetic description of the existential impact of Gestalt values in South America.

A simpler understanding of the term [for me, a least]:

[singular] psychology : something that is made of many parts and yet is somehow more than or different from the combination of its parts

Maybe the word synergy would work better then gestalt in application to poetry being more than the sum of its parts.........stan

I have a better idea, Joe. Let's post poems and hope for the best...the gestalt of poetic expertise from both the reader and the poet, themselves.

~A

:-) :-) :-)

and a wink.

Life is a long walk off a short pier.....or is it a short walk off a long pier? I'll never know the difference.

~A

Knowledge turned to action is wisdom.

May we all become wise as children.

~A

I've found that I cannot ignore a poems content. It's like trying to fix a car without taking note of what it looks like; its brand, colour and all. No matter what the mechanics are like, structure and all, unless it is very queer, the content must be looked at.

Just wanted to say so.