Many in this thread have already given expression to most of the things I think and feel about poetry, but there are some things I'd like to say about the relationship between poet and reader, or poet and critter.
There are always people in workshops who take a hard, aggressive approach to critique, and this, by and large, with proper moderation and attention to board etiquette, is a good and productive thing.
Knowing that, and knowing that aggression is not a big part of my nature, and that I always regret any instance when I become aggressive, and that I feel better after I have behaved passively and not belligerently, I go about critiquing in a more passive manner. I, as the reader, am the passive vessel, into which the poet pours her words. These words, in the arrangement she has made, are intended to affect me, and as a reasonable reader, I know that she wants me to be affected by the words in the same way that the words affected her, so I try to do that, to share her experience. I don't go into it with the feeling that she owes me something, or that she will be responsible for my disappointment if her poems fails to make an impression on me, or is simply poorly made: I let the disappointment fall on her by virtue of my having failed in sharing her experience.
There is no reason whatsoever for me to be angry or indignant towards her. And the worst thing to do is act offended by a poorly made poem. I've seen that kind of thing happen a million times: a critter acting like a shrinking violet, so in accord and at one with the benevolent power of good poetry that bad poetry is odious, even harmful to them. Bad poetry cannot possibly harm or offend a competent poet; on the contrary, it should arouse pity and compassion. Without bad poetry, no-one would know what good poetry was, and if all poetry was good poetry, there would be no need for poetry, no reason to write it.
I take a subordinate position to the poet. The poet has made something that she thinks might work, and wants to try it out on like minded people. I voluntarily take the time to read what she has made, and voluntarily agree to think and think and think and think about what she has made. The poet has not coerced or forced me to read her poem by the mere act of posting it for critique.
There are those who argue the contrary, but those arguments are not valid . Even in a workshop, any critique done by a member is done voluntarily, of their own choice. No-one is forced to critique a poem in an online workshop. No-one. I've seen many poems slide down the board at another site with a big goose egg in the reply column. I've had one or two of my poems slide down the board with nothing but a goose egg to bid it farewell. That, when all is said and done, is probably the harshest critique a poet can receive. We all have egos. No comment is worse than no comment.
Now, some of the more aggressive critters like to say things like this to the poet:
commentexample_one says > I can't believe I wasted three minutes reading this. I wish I had those three minutes back! Will you please read the guidlelines, and post in a forum appropriate to your level of ability and experience, so that other people [meaning we really smart people] will not have to waste their time reading a poem written by someone who obviously doesn't know anything about the craft of writing poetry? We value our time as much as you value yours.
The above comment, to my mind, is an example of someone with an ego on overdrive. Something similar to the above has been typed, or copy-pasted, millions of times, at other sites, and at one site in particular. The best response, even if the poem is execrable, as far as I'm concerned, is this:
poetreplyexample_88 says > Thank you, commentexample_one. I appreciate your taking the time to write this response. However, I'm afraid I cannot feel responsible or guilty about how you manage your time. I can only manage my time. Thanks again!
At which point, due to the critter being wounded by the poet, much nastiness ensues, until a moderator steps in. In the real world, it sometimes happens that a Colley Cibber actually can hurt an Alexander Pope, though for most people the joke is always on Cibber. Ha-ha-ha.
It's obvious to anyone who knows about poetry that Pope was better at it than Cibber. It is glaringly obvious, hence the tragedy (to my mind) of Pope spending so much time wasting his gift, his remarkable skills, on laughing at and mocking writers who everyone knew could not hold a candle to him. Who knows what amazing works he could have penned had he been able to value a great poem over a good joke?
Luckily, for readers of poetry, along came poets like Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, who spent their time writing with an effort aimed at exalting the human experience, of finding value in human life and human beings, in reverencing the natural world and the cosmos, rather than focusing on putting mankind to shame. Our religion, our faith, if we understand and practice it to the best of our ability, provides us with shame proportional to our deserving of it as individuals, and history gives us an abundance of reasons to be ashamed of ourselves collectively.
I prefer to use poetry, the artform that I love the most, even above my great love for music, to make an impression of that passion, that love that I feel, in the minds of a few other people. I don't wish to use poetry to make myself feel better or bigger than others, to softsoap or coddle myself, a purpose for which certain authors of satire have used it. I'd rather use it as a means of helping a reader to empathize with another human being, no matter who that human being is, just to take a severe example: a violent criminal undergoing capital punishment, or an innocent wrongly undergoing the same; how would, or could, that feel to the father and mother of the former, or the latter? How must that feel, as a human being? That's a big part the experiment of poetry for me, to explore situations in which I haven't been involved, to wonder how I would react, how I would feel, in such scenarios.
In the end, I'd rather praise than blame as a critter, I'd rather reward than punish: knowing that there are plenty of harder, more aggressive critters out there doing what they do, keeping things balanced. I can't act in contradiction to my nature, nor, I think, can anyone else. Our job is to understand this and to enslave the emotions to reason, as best we can, even if, in reality, that goal is most likely impossible.
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