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weirdelf's blog

Formatting suggestions for correction in critique

When we make a specific suggestion for correction it is good to quote the line and add the correction in [brackets].

When you re-write someone's poem it becomes very hard to compare the original to the critique. In fact it should never be done unless in extreme cases and you better be pretty bloody confident.

Please think about how your comment can be compared to the original by the poet.

cheers
Jess

Help!!!!!!!! Performance anxiety!

I've been asked to do some readings of my work. Every time I do it I suffer from shakes. It's not just anxiety, nervousness or excitement, all so similar in effect. I'm pleased and honoured to be asked, feel fairly confident in the worth of my work but when I get up to read I commence to shake, not just hands, my whole body and voice, like I'm working a supercharged jackhammer. I shake so hard the pages fly out of my hands. A lectern doesn't stop my feet vibrating off the floor and my voice fibrillating set to crack like a re-visited adolescence.

Oh despair!

Just listened to Alan Ginsberg reading "Howl" again. Why do I do this to myself?

We all need to come down from our own egos now and then, I make myself read Shakespeare, Coleridge, Bukowski again and again I torture myself with the genius I will never be.

But try. I have to. "“If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad.” Byron. But I've never met a good writer for whom writing wasn't torture.

Bunch of fucking masochistic egotists some of us are.

Unqualified to critique

This is a follow up to my blog "How to critique"
http://new.neopoet.com/node/2466

OK, I realise most people don't feel "qualified" to critique

but you don't have to be an expert to give critique.

So many people use that as an excuse. Yes, it is difficult. There is the fear of mis-reading or giving offence, but if you can write poetry you can critique it.

Watermana Thesis

This is an edited form of the Thesis that was presented with Watermana the video. It is a representation of a shamanic journey and an introduction to the shamanic process. It can be found on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXmFJtBymbs
(crappy compressed quality and shitty sound, unfortunately)

Watermana the poem http://new.neopoet.com/node/2465

"My Friends" by Komninos

this is one of my all time favourite poems

my friends.

Sometimes I want to give up, but of course I won't.

So many poems here are just personal experiences, better or worse written.

I want more!

I want poetry that moves and stirs and upsets people.

I want more from Neopoet and that means I expect everyone to really think about what they are saying and to who, not just post a personal reflection.

Write what you want, but I will criticize it. Mercilessly.

How to Critique

I'm posting this as a blog to get feedback, improve it and later perhaps post it as a Forum.

Follow, where possible the 3 rules of feedback
1. Say what you like about it.
2. Say what you don't like about it and how it could be improved.
3. Find one more nice thing to say.
(I must admit I frequently leave out steps 1 and 3 because they have already been covered ad nauseum in previous comments)

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