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The Slings And Arrows
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How Does Criticism
Affect Your Writing Style?
Back in 1999, when I first got online and discovered poetry
groups, I was so excited to find people who loved to write.
Who loved writing poetry, of all things-- and who devoted many
hours every day to composing, critiquing, and in general,
dissecting one another's poems-- and I took it seriously.
That was back in the heyday of CompuServe Forums.
CompuServe at that time had a pretty stripped-down and
easily navigated, plain-spoken format-- and I loved it. I learned things.
I even experimented with new forms and had my efforts critiqued, and it
was not only instructional, it was painless. That lasted only two years
however, and the forums were disbanded as CompuServe was swallowed
up by AOL and its old forums bit the dust: not enough glitz. Not enough
social networking and, let's face it, not enough of a background
for internet advertizing.
I drifted onto EZ Boards - even hosted one or two of my own in those
years-- mostly because of the negativity on other boards. What I found
was a demoralizing pecking order, and (oh God!) trollers- who lived to
cause problems for other posters. Things would invariably get nasty and
unduly competitive. I took too much to heart, and more often than not,
I began to doubt what I'd written was even worthwhile.
I found myself questioning my style. I grew downhearted... defensive.
It just didn't work for me anymore.
I've come to believe that writing has to have freedom to experiment--
has to have a decided joy in its creation, and I just wasn't finding it by
writing in groups. At least for me, it's never helpful to have minutiae
picked at by the group: if something is truly 'not working', I prefer to
find that out on my own by reading and rereading what I've written.
I need to hear my own voice rather than the conferred opinion of
many while a piece is developing, and I despise agreed-upon taste.
And I find the sound of overly-workshopped poems lifeless. I enjoy
a few flying leaps at the moon-- and I like to kick the hell out of form.
First and foremost, I have to enjoy writing, but since the old
CompuServe forums went down, I've found only places fraught
with competitiveness (or distracted by flirtations)--often under the
sway of a local cadre of poetry demigogues.
Critiquing has not been helpful to my own writing since those early days.
(Interestingly, they were mostly Brits; maybe their no-nonsense approach
was what I found enlightening at that time.) The forums I now inhabit are
'response only'-- or entirely solo. I use the internet format as a helpful tool
in seeing the thing on the page, where it either works or it doesn't.
Creating within a writing hive is not helpful to this poet, but if it is for you,
by all means use it. Communally reached directives are simply not for me.
We all need to find what works for our style-- and for me, formal critique
is the very death knell in finding pleasure in setting words to page.
My enjoyment is in the poem discovering itself,
as my fingers type
along...
I'm simply the accompanist...
as it races to show its face.
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