I received the following comment this morning from a reader and thought I’d oblige the request:
I hope that you dont mind me asking,BUT, would you mind viewing my poetry blog and let me know your opinion on my poems (good or not so good). I have never set up a blog before so any advice on how to prehaps get a bit more recognition etc would be very helpful. Thanks and hope you enjoy reading them as much as i enjoyed writing them.
First, I’d like to thank Stacey for the request and I’ll be glad to offer some tips. I apologize if anything I say comes across hurtful or harsh. I have a tendency sometimes to be very critical, but I think there is benefit in that, which I hope you will see.
Secondly, I want to make a distinction between someone who writes poetry and someone who is a poet. This may come across as elitist, but I assure you that it isn’t intended that way. It is simply a distinction between a person who enjoys a certain activity and a person who is centered on making it a profession.
I recently purchased an automobile from a guy who buys clunkers, fixes them up, and resells them. I don’t mind such a person making a profit on the transaction because he does something I have no interest in. His skill in diagnosing a problem and taking the necessary steps in getting that problem fixed so that someone like me can have an affordable and reliable mode of transportation is a valuable skill. However, he is not a mechanic. He said so himself.
The gentleman, rather, is a person who likes to work on cars and resell them. He is a businessman, but he is also somewhat of a hobbyist. He does retain a mechanic, a professional with more in-depth knowledge of automobiles, to fix things that he himself cannot fix due to his limited but working knowledge. Poetry is much the same way. There are professional poets, people who study craft and learn successful ways to communicate through the medium of poetry, and there are people who know a little bit about poetry and like to tinker but are not really interested in taking the full plunge into the world of professional poetry production. There is nothing wrong with either brand.
Why This Distinction Among Poets Is Important
I make this distinction for a couple of reasons. No. 1, if I say something that is above your head or that you have no interest in knowing because you are just “tinkering” and not interested in promoting your poetry for publication then you can feel free to discard it. It likely doesn’t apply to you. The second reason I make this distinction is because it helps to know where a person is coming from. I approach the subject of poetry, and writing in particular, from the perspective of someone who has spent his entire adult life attempting to craft his own poetry in such a way that it is worthy of publication and studying the work of others who do the same. This doesn’t make me a better poet, of course, but it does mean that I approach the criticism of poetry from the perspective of what is important in terms of achieving the highest standards of craft. I refuse to do it any other way. I won’t tone it down just to be nice and if you’re offended by that then please don’t ask me to critique your poetry.
A Commendation And Welcome
I’d like to take time out to welcome Stacey into the blogosphere and for taking the plunge to publish her poetry online. She is now a part of that rare breed I like to call “The Poetosphere.” It is that subset of a larger population commonly referred to as the Blogosphere, but which consists solely of poets who write blogs.
There are two types of poetry blogs: Those that publish poetry, either their own or someone else’s, and there are those that simply offer commentary of some sort without publishing poetry. There are plenty of the first kind, but far fewer of the second kind. World Class Poetry Blog strives to be in the second set, although I do on occasion publish a poem, either my own or someone else’s. That is not my main focus, however.
That said, I will be up front and honest and say that I am not particularly fond of the first kind of poetry blog unless it is a blog that takes submissions and publishes a variety of poets as a literary journal does. The reason I do not particularly care for poetry blogs that primarily publish the blogger’s poetry is that this type of blog is simply a hobby and not the work of a professional seeking a poetic avocation. Again, there is nothing wrong that, but in terms of literary quality, the most of what I’ve seen from these types of poetry blogs is not of the same quality as what you would find in a literary blog that operates on submission guidelines. In that regard, Stacey’s poetry is pretty much arm in arm with the rest of what is out there in the poetosphere.
Where The Critical Rubber Meets The Poetry Road
In case you are wondering, Stacey’s blog is located at http://poetry-by-stacey.blogspot.com/. Upon first glance, Stacey’s blog is a lot like anything else you’ll see online. It is a Blogspot blog and that’s fine for a hobby blog. I wouldn’t recommend Blogspot for a business professional or for a poetry professional who is trying to write a quality literary blog that seeks to brand itself and attract serious attention as a literary blog. There are a couple of reasons for this:
- Blogspot is the No. 1 bad neighborhood for spam on the Internet. If you are not up on search engine optimization tactics and strategies then that might go over your head, but suffice it to say that Blogspot, owned by Google, consists of about 75% spam blogs, aka splogs. Judging from my own observation, I’d say the majority of the rest of it consists of poetry blogs.
- It is almost always better to own your real estate than to rent it. With few exceptions, I’d say having your own domain name is better than a blog that sits on the server of a free host. But for most poetry hobby blogs like Stacey’s I’d say that is the one exception where it might make more sense to be with Blogspot. After all, if you are just tinkering and you are not even sure if it is something you are going to stick with long term then it’s good to “try your hand” at something new to see if you like it. But once you decide that you’re in it for the long haul, you might want to consider purchasing your own domain name for $10 per year and hosting your poetry blog on your brandable domain name.
Back to Stacey’s blog: Right away I know it’s a hobby blog. I can tell by its plain, non-brandable look – the background, the font colors, the entire face looks and screams, “Hobby!” As far as hobby blogs go, Stacey’s is about par in terms of looks. There could be more information and sidebar widgets, but since she is new at this and just getting started I would expect it to be rather plain. That’s all it really needs to be for right now.
I love the bio. It’s simple and not full of fluff. I think that is always best. It’s personable and says, “I’m friendly.” Perfect for a hobby blog. But I’d ditch the flowers and put a photo of myself there instead. That would complete the personal feel and make yourself more accessible to your audience, which I presume is other hobbyist poets who like to write poetry and read the poetry of others.
But let’s move on to the poetry and discuss it from a standpoint of craft ….
Poetry By Stacey: A Critical Look At A Poetry Hobbyist’s Verse
The poem I like most of Stacey’s collection is “Cope.”
I like “Cope” because it is simple and follows a particular meter. There is nothing complex about it. It avoids the overdone “I” that beginning poets often make. It carries a message that is easy to grasp and strikes an emotional chord, which good poetry is supposed to do. It elicits a reaction and that’s always a plus.
But “Cope” does have its problems. First, the metrical pattern is perfect for the theme, so that’s a plus. The short, choppy lines make me think I’m trying to cope along with the subject in the poem. I’m not at odds with the simple dimeter that is set up in the first two lines. But the poem doesn’t maintain a consistent meter all the way through.
The places where “Cope” trips over itself are in the line “The involuntary urges” – there is one syllable too many – “Always wins” needs one more metrical foot at the beginning; and the final stanza has too many syllables. In fact, those last three lines let me down completely. If I were to rewrite them, I would do it this way:
- Stop and stareOr carry on
Refuse to care
You want those lines short and choppy like the rest of the poem and the rule of thumb is to take out all unnecessary words. Generally speaking, words like “the,” “and,” and other connecting words are not necessary in poetry unless they contribute to the metrical pattern. In this case, they detract from it so they’ve got to go.
Now let’s discuss a poem I didn’t particularly care for – “A Life Is Taken.”
The title does its job and piques my interest. Right away, I want to know whose life we are talking about. I am set up for an experience that ultimately lets me down and it does so in the very first line.
That first line is almost a repeat of the title. In some cases that’s not a bad thing. In this case, I don’t like it because I already know, after having read the title, that a life is taken so I don’t need to be told again. The only new information I get from that first line is that the life is “young,” but that really tells me nothing. Lots of young lives are taken every day and young lives being taken in literature is one of those things that has been done over and over again. If a poem is going to address a “young life” being taken then it must be exceptional right from Line 1. Otherwise, I’m off to read another poem.
“Headlines” in Line 2 just reiterates my point above. It’s another cliche that is not necessary and by now you’ve failed to capture my attention so I don’t even feel like reading any more.
Everything about this poem, from the words used to the meter and the rhyme scheme just overflows with triteness. There is nothing new here. Stacey needs to capture my attention from the very first word and make sure that I read the rest of the poem. She does this very well in “Cope” with the lines:
- A gasp in her breath
Chill in her spine
Yes, gasp and chill are common words used in literature to provoke a sudden excitement or fear or communicate that feeling about a subject, but the mode of communication, the short and choppy lines, the metrical pattern, all of it together makes the expression new and different enough – plus, the hardness of the language – ensures that I keep reading. Those are the elements that “A Life Is Taken” and the other poems on Stacey’s blog lack.
Overall, Stacey needs to watch out for a few things:
- Not every poem needs to rhyme. Play around with other elements and learn how to communicate through poetry without relying on a set rhyming pattern. That doesn’t mean that rhyme is bad, but if you’ll read contemporary poetry, much of it does not rhyme. Sometimes, you can create the sense of emotion that you are aiming at by approaching your poem from a different style and tone. More versatility, less rhyme.
- Proofread your poems before you publish them. This is a big pet peeve of mine. As someone who has been a published writer for most of his life and has been an editor for a literary journal as well as a newspaper, I know that even the best editors sometimes have misspellings and grammatical errors. But you should do everything you can do to limit those. I do not like reading a poem, and literary journal editors won’t either, where the poet did not take the time to edit and correct misspellings.
- Stacey needs to read more and experiment more. Contemporary poetry is vast in terms of voice, tone, and poetic elements. There are so many schools, or genres, today and while you can’t know them all, you should try to find out where you fit in. Read more contemporary poetry and study the poets who are writing today. What are they writing about? How are they writing about it? Why do they write it the way they do instead of using traditional patterns and schemes? It is important in finding your own voice that you try to get a better understanding of what others in your era are doing and why they are doing it – even if you choose to do it differently.
My Final Words To Stacey (And To You)
I have no idea who Stacey is, how old she is, or why she writes. I do know that she is British, even if she didn’t tell me in her profile. The word “cheque” in “That Look” gives it away because U.S. citizens would spell it “check.” With that one word, I know she is likely either British, Canadian, or Australian. But none of those are bad things. It does say that dialect plays an important role in style, tone, and versification. Play to those strengths.
Poetry is an art form. If you are serious about writing poetry and getting published then you should study the art and that includes learning how other poets write and why. If you are a hobbyist and just want to write what you write without considering publication then it doesn’t matter. You have to do what is best for you. In the end, it all comes down to what you want out of it and what you have to offer others.
I wish Stacey all the best. Thank you for letting me read your poetry and having the opportunity to discuss it on my blog. I hope my comments help you in some way. If you want to dig a little deeper into the elements of poetry, poetic style, and really learn how to write poetry with craft in mind then I recommend that you stop by World Class Poetry and read some famous poet biographies along with a few of their poems, learn more about the types of poetry, and don’t forget to check out the section on poetry terms to learn more about the different ways you can craft a poem as you write.
Related posts:
Thank you very much for your feed back, I will take on board all that you advised.
It is a bit of a hobby that I got back into after stopping for a few years. I have two children with medical conditions and I am a carer so find writing my poems a bit of an escape route you will now be able to guess that the “cope” poem and “little soldier” poem are close to the heart, I love writing about different things the one called “A Young life is taken” is more about the incidents that are occuring, which seems like they’re on a daily basis in Britain at the moment (yes you were right about that too I am British).
The reason the flower picture is on my profile, is that is one of the paintings my daughter has done.
Once again thank you for taking the time to reply and for your honesty.
A very fine article indeed. And not just for Stacey either. In the past I’ve got caught up with inexperienced poets looking for pointers and I’ve tried to do my bit but I found them draining. It’s why I think blogs like yours and mine have a responsibility to pass on some of what we know. I had a look at Stacey’s page and she’s writing the kind of stuff I was producing when I was thirteen. And she is British – her profile says so.
I’ve said this before, and probably to you, but I owe a great deal to a magazine called ‘Poetry Information’ which was published in the seventies. It was an A4 sized magazine that didn’t publish poetry, it published articles about poetry. I learned so much from it. There are too many poetry magazines and blogs out there just publishing poetry but not nearly enough explaining poetry and that’s what newbies need at first, not someone nipping their heads because they don’t get it and calling them thick.
That’s why from time to time on my site I’ll explain a bit about some poem or other so that newer readers, if they stumble across them, will realise that there is technique to a poem, literally method to my madness.
I have to disagree with you on the use of the word “poet.” While it is indeed true that there is a big difference between someone who has studied poetry at the post-collegiate level, bee published, etc. and the “hobbyist,” a poet is anyone who writes poetry and wishes to be called a poet. Very few of us make a living solely on poetry. Even the bigger ones earn a paycheck from teaching rather than writing, so I think the word is fair game. I think it is in fact “elitist” to say that ssomeone can’t call themselves a poet.
Stacey, I moved your comment to this thread because it fit better here. Thanks for stopping over and I hope you return.
Jim, thanks. Keep blogging.
Talia, disagreement is fine. I never said or implied that a poet has to make money. I didn’t mean to leave that impression. Nor did I say that certain people can’t call themselves a poet. A person can call themselves anything they want. But I think a true test of humility is to have an honest and realistic picture of oneself. To me, a poet is someone who writes and crafts poetry for the purpose of publication or recognition. Someone who writes poetry for their own pleasure or to share with friends is someone who writes poetry. A nuance. If you choose to call them a poet, by all means, there is no law against it. But I do believe there is an injustice being done to the craft itself to call someone a poet merely because they move magnets around on a fridge. If that makes me an elitist then I suppose that’s what I am. But I am an elitist poet.
This is addressed to Jim thank you for your opinion, which I feel that we are all intitled to have. you stated my poems are the kind of one’s you wrote at the age of thirteen, I feel that we all have our own way of wrighting and exspressing, and this is my way. People write poetry in different forms and for different reasons, what some people like others will dislike, wouldn’t it a boring world if we are all the same!!
I will not apologise for my style of wrighting, I write from the heart and soul with meaning behind every word, and each one tells a story, the fact Jim that I am British is irrelevant.
Jim you feel that an injustice is being done to the craft itself when someone uses the word “poet” and in your words “merely because they move magnets around the fridge”, if us “hobby poetry bloggers” choose to use the word “poet”, then we should be able to do so!
And like I have already said in my previous comment we are all different,what you call a “poet” others may agree or disagree with, if you go into any bookshop or libary the poetry section consists of many different poets and themes, from serious poetry to humour poetry to poems that you may even class as immature, we all need to keep an open mind.
I’d just like to point out that I used the “move magnets around on a fridge” analogy.
My apologies Mr Taylor but from the comments Jim wrote its obvious that both of your opinions are on par with each other, lets be honest all us “poets” are out to get recognition for our Blogs (whether they’re free blogs or not), and even yourself will have this in mind.
I have obviously read other peoples poetry some of which I enjoyed and other’s not so much, but I personally like poetry to be individual and to suit their own style and represent the writer’s own idea of poetry, not anyone else’s ideology of what it should be.
Lets just put it this way: people will either love my poems or dislike them intensely – and this works for everyone who writes poetry.
I read the comment you made on my blog, Stacey. I thought I would clarify something though. When I said that your poetry is the kind of stuff I wrote when I was thirteen that was a simple statement of fact. I can see how you might have considered that a criticism but it was purely an observation. I could just have easily said that you poetry is like the stuff my seventy year old mum used to write because it is. All I was saying was that I’ve been there, exactly where you are; I was being empathetic not critical. Of course there are horses for courses and that’s as it should be.
As for the comment about moving magnets around the fridge, where did I say that? (I think you’ll find it was “the poet” and not me). Please don’t read too much into what I said. I never said you were not a poet. I never said you were a bad poet. I looked at your poems for a couple of minutes just to see what you were about. And, for the record, I also have a set of fridge magnet poetry.
I came over here to this blog to see what Stacy had up with Jim.
I have been a poet for 40 years. To me that means that I have spent 4 decades trying to figure out WTF I mean by that.
To me mastery of an art occurs when through the action of practice of an art the art is defined, and as we are all unique humans that the art is therefore redefined through our coming closer in our art to a detail of our essential Being. I commend all attempts at distinction of shades of grayness in the drawing of lines and borders around about and scribbled all over what it means to be a poet. Some days to be a poet is a goal, “I want to be a poet today… hmmm… maybe I should write a poem.”
I also agree with Jim that some poetry that happens to call itself poetry is crappy, doggerel, pedestrian shit (though Jim never says shit that I know of… I think it more like shiite!). I say that not having looked at anyone’s examples here… I say it in general. When I was younger I used to think it mattered; now I don’t give a fig (an euphemism for F). But do not ever ask me what I think of your poetry because I will either be forced to be nice in an artificial and stilted manner, or to tell you what I really think, or to rewrite your crap for you in a well meaning attempt at poetic discourse.
Money. As I know of there are only two poets in America that have made a living at it. Alan Ginsberg and Robert Bly.
Alan, before he died, I understand was able to eke out a living of $80,000 per year but it was not for writing or publishing poetry that he got paid (in my opinion after Howl his poetry mostly sucked big time), it was for performing, and also for all of the arcane business deals that he got himself into. Alan was a promoter of his work, and his craft, and of everyone around him (note Kerouac) along the lines of PT Barnum.
In the case of Robert Bly he also has made his money in performance, trotting around the countryside doing very strong and intimate reading sessions then running back to his farm… it helps to maintain low overhead if one wants to make a living as a poet. Advice: grow your own cabbage. That on occasion he writes a non-poetry book (Big John) helps too. Other poets that I have known have usually had other means of livelihood, in other words, though they may seek to be published and may seek to be paid for performances there is not ever a whole lot of money to be had in the art.
Besides chittery naïve amateur poetry and the poetry of ‘publication’ there is a third alternative that you have missed and that is art made for the divine and transcendent. Some yokel sitting in a cave in the mountains that carves three-word poems into stones for no other higher motivation than the imagination that some celestial divinity is watching. Though this may seem an odd motivation it is actually much stronger of one than the motivation of horniness, boredom, fame or the lure of money or publication. It is the art pursued most often for reasons of attainment of a purity of the form.
On the count of Blogs and ezines (and small press hard copy publications) the essential dynamic is to distinguish if the work is self-chosen or chosen by others and then in the case of the ‘others’ what matters is if those who are doing the selection have established an aggregate of attention — meaning that when they select your poem and show it that they can get a whole shiiteload of other folks to pay attention because all of those folks liked the previous accumulation of stuff that the chooser had chosen and shown them… it used to be a discussion as to ‘taste’, as to if a publisher had taste in their selection of work, or not. It is that accumulation of these references, of one person who interests us in their selection of the work of others, other than selection of their own work that begins to build individual reputations that in turn some would hope would lead to accidents wherein one is actually paid to perform.
We could call this the business of poetry and fortunate or unfortunate there is little thinking of business when it comes to anyone who thinks they are a poet or that dabbles in the writing of poesy. My other favorite stat is that in America only 2% of the population ever reads poetry. Figure that into market share, branding and world dominance.
Thank you all for your comments and for continuing this discussion. Thank you Gabriel for stepping in and adding your two cents. You say a lot of good things. Just want to address a couple:
1) I think making money for most of us is not the goal. There have been poets aplenty who earned a decent income doing other things. Few make it rich writing poetry. Robert Service is perhaps the best example of a poet who did make a lot of money from writing poetry. But he was also a savvy marketer and very popular. He didn’t write as an academic; he was very much a raconteur and loved to entertain, which he did, and it paid. That was much the same with Allen Ginsberg. He entertained and people liked it, though I do agree that his later poetry was nowhere near in quality as to the one poem that earned him fame.
2) As for the 2%, yes the poetry market is very small, which is why traditional publishers aren’t much interested in it. Even then, within that small circle there are little fragments and branches so that if you tried to capture the entire market you couldn’t because of the differences in people’s tastes and styles.
That said, none of this should be taken as a criticism about or toward a particular individual. This is a discussion about craft, which I think is important. In my mind, a person interested in developing their craft is a poet. A person who just wants to write poetry with no mind toward craft is just a person who writes poetry. Others might make the distinction differently.
Anyone can start a blog and publish their own poetry. That takes no real talent or skill. That’s not to say that having a blog that publishes one’s own poetry means that you have no talent or skill. It just simply means that, in and of itself, being a self-published author of poetry is no indication of one’s worth as a poet. There is a big difference between a person who studies the craft and works toward achieving a level of excellence in skill and someone who just writes because it makes them feel good. My blog is concerned with helping people who want to improve their craft with thoughtful encouragement and by providing insight into the elements of craft.
I appreciate the distinction in regard of dabbling and the pursuit of a perfected craft… I did though get the impression that when ‘professional’ is applied as a designation that to me professional means a career with pay check whereas there are very good poets who have never made any money at their pursuit of perfection of craft.
For sake of clarity, I meant no criticism of anyone in particular other than of myself. There really is a whole lot of really bad poetry that exists and poets who are known as poets who produce the bulk of it.
I don’t mind anyone starting a blog or publishing their own poetry. I did mean to indicate what it means to be published which essentially only means at root that someone else besides the creator of the piece is motivated to do something with it.
Best,
GO
Thanks Gabriel. Yes, that is an important distinction. I did not mean poets who get paid. And you are right about publication. There is something about being published by someone else that indicates that there is at least some value in a poem. It means that someone else sees the value in it and that gives a little more credibility to the person claiming a stake in the literary arena.
Thank you very much gentlemen for your interesting comments though I feel some of them contadict-lets not start a debate about that though! I may not agree with all the comments made,(one that I do agree with is from the poet in paragraph 2 comment 11), but again like I have previously said we dont all have to agree.
Please do remember everyone has to start somewhere, I was expecting constructive critisism-hence me visiting this page, and am not offended by any of the remarks made. However I feel that prehaps I have offended others by daring to visit this site with my form of poetry, which is a shame as I would have hoped that poets like yourselves would have been more open minded and accepting to newcomers with styles varying from yours.
I have my own reasons for what I write, how I write, and why I write, and if my style offends I can not, and will not appologise for it.
it’s feisty over here today! the initial impulse in this exercise is correct: in offering feedback/critique, we need to know why it’s being requested. does a person want her blog/poetry critiqued b/c she wants to become a published poet or b/c she wants to know if her blog and writing work well as an expression of herself? at the beginning, it was clear that there were two sets of rules.
what i missed was when stacy got a chance to answer that question.
her answer determines how everyone here should have approached her request.
i’m sorry that stacy’s feelings have been hurt, even though i’m coming to this after the fact. i don’t know if it helps her, but it’s a job hazard of asking for feedback and i think we’ve all felt beaten down by critique before. it’s harsh sometimes, even if it’s not intended that way.
i had a very good professor and writing mentor in college who warned me early on against being married to my words. i carry that with me and when i ask for critique, i expect the worst. in receiving feedback and performing my own revisions, nothing is off limits in terms of change or deletion. some people go in expecting reassurance and then they’re devastated. it’s important to be honest with ourselves about what we’re asking of others and then prepare ourselves to receive it.
(and i’m not embarrassed to say that 95% of the time, in my experience, if i’m honest with myself, the critique ferrets out weak spots even if the language it uses doesn’t ring true in the piece.)
i’m aware that i’m rambling now.
i’m not going to go anywhere near the question about who’s a poet and who’s not. OK. I am. I can’t stand it. you’re a poet if you express yourself through poetry. period. the issues of quality or professionalism or payment are secondary.
Stacey, I don’t think anyone here is offended by your poetry. I’d like to thank you for engaging in dialog with us sinners. When you asked me to take a look at your blog you requested two things that I tried to provide, namely:
1) let me know your opinion on my poems (good or not so good)
2) any advice on how to prehaps get a bit more recognition etc
I believe I handled the first request there as honestly and fairly as I could. The second one took care of itself as I knew it would.
This blog now gets more than 3,000 visits per month. This post, after two days, has moved up into the top 10 most visited blog posts out of more than 150 posts and that’s not counting today’s traffic. Most blog visitors are lurkers, which means they’ll come and read but won’t comment, so you’ve got a decent number of people in two days to visit this blog and now know about your blog and poetry. I’m sure some of them will like it.
My comments aren’t a matter of style and taste. I like a wide variety of styles and I always evaluate a poem on the basis of its craftiness. I see some evidence of craft in your poems, but I did want to point out what I consider some weaknesses. If that wasn’t what you were after then I’m sorry your feelings were hurt, but I thought it would benefit my readership to see the critique. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered. Ultimately, it all boils down to what you do from there. Change it, don’t change it; it’s nobody else’s business, and it certainly isn’t mine. They’re your poems. Only you can decide what to do with them.
I wish you all the best and I hope you’ll come back and visit my humble blog again. I’ll encourage you to even leave some comments as I like the interaction. Disagreements are what make the world go round. Without conflict there’d be no reason to write. Thanks for giving me reasons.
Firstly thank you very much carolee for your comments, I really was not offended about the comments made by the gentlemen, as I have already stated its good to hear other points of view, what I felt I needed to do was stand my ground in my opinion of “who is a poet” and as you have seen from the comments we all have different views on this subject.
I have also read some of the poetry that the poet and Jim have written on there blogs, obviously we put pen to paper very differently,some people will love the poetry they write others will not which will work in the same way as mine.
Poet, thank you for your feed back, as you will see from my comment to Carolee I think it became more of a debate of “who is a poet” and as a strong willed women I WILL stand my ground if I do not agree with something that is being said, and I think its good to speak one’s mind, which i’m sure you agree with.
Uh-oh. Get your tomatoes ready because I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to say about who is or is not a “poet”. I was always under the impression that the title “poet” was conferred upon someone much like the Queen dubs her knights. In other words, one writes until they have carpel tunnel syndrome and can’t write anymore (hyperbole), and over this same time span one’s work is noticed by others and then passed around. Then this “publishing” engine is started and one’s work is circulated. It either becomes more and more read by others or withers on the vine. It’s the buzz of other poetry readers and publishers that starts conferring the label “poet” onto the writer.
May be a distinction needs to be made somewhere in the hierarchy of “established” writers as to the level of “craft” that propels a writer into the sphere of “poet”? Otherwise we end up in a pool of mediocre writers all praising each others work and inadvertently dumbing down the whole writing process/experience? Is it okay to expect competition to weed out the best of the best so we can learn from our writing betters? How else would we judge our own growth and strength as writers?
I’m not really looking to stir up further debate over who is or isn’t a poet, but don’t I have a somewhat valid argument here?
[BTW, I'm neither a writer or a poet. I sit on my hobby horse over at my place daydreaming and spending my time in reverie.]
Shmoop is another site that I would recommend if you are looking or deeper insights into the elements of poetry, style, techniques and even how to read a poem. It’s something I stumbled upon some time back and for those interested in poetry, whether reading, writing or even studying it, I would urge you to have a look. It’s and it’s great for demystifying poetry with plain spoken analysis. Cool stuff.