I am making a concerted effort to read and comment on the works of others.  On other sites I found many poets only posting poems and not taking the time to critique others.  A huge no-no in my book. 

I'm wondering if Poetry Circle has either a written or unwritten rule about the number of critiques one should give for each poem he or she posts?  Or, should one wait a certain amount of time between posting poems?  I want to make sure I'm contrributing properly to this remarkable forum.

Thanks everyone!
Laura Nelson

No such rules regarding commenting versus posting so far, Laura. Rules tend to invite "rules police," in my experience. But I think your suggestion that folks should take the time to comment is a good one. Give what you hope to get.

The signup agreement has been amended, however, to include this bit of text in the front:

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a forum of and for advanced poets. We therefore encourage you to sign up using your real name, the pen name by which you are widely known, or the pen name by which you would like to be widely known. Changing your user name at a later time can be cumbersome. Using a fanciful user name will not endear you to the other writers who post here.

After signing up, you can change the user name that other members see by clilcking Profile, Account Related Settings, changing the value in the Name field, and then clicking Change Profile. You will still have to log on to the site using the user name that you originally chose, however. If you'd like to start over entirely, you can create a new account on the site. Existing accounts will not be deleted, however.

Anyone can sign up to submit poems here, but we do have a rejection system in place for work that we feel does not meet the standards of the site. You will typically be notified if a poem or prose work you have submitted has been rejected, but a specific reason for the rejection may not be given, as the volume of work we receive often does not allow for individual responses.

There are some "rules" there, I suppose.

can we use foul language in our poetry. I find that my passion is confirmed in this at some times

I was just wondering if there was some way that when someone sends one of my poems to the workshop or the (yuck) rejection board they can have the courtesy to let me know why. Is that to much to ask? i don't think it is unreasonable. I feel that when they don't comment on the situation it is almost dishonorable or at least very rude. THX BRIAN price

agreed. we've been discussing this point elsewhere as well, Brian. but, whatever. shit happens, arguments only bring friction. best to stay on the outside...repeat along the margins.

--cabernet

It actually may be too much to ask. No one involved in running this site is paid for the effort. It's run very much as a labor of love, like most literary journals, but busier. And how many literary journals have sent you hand-written rejection notes with explanations about why your work was rejected?

 

I think this thread is worthy of a fresh airing from time to time, as a reminder of the importance of commenting on others' work.
Hey look at me -- I'm a selfappointed poh--leese--man.

Oi, get your hands off my nightstick, bitches . . .

;)

nee-naw nee-naw.

There are two reasons I don't comment on the poetry here. Firstly I don't feel qualified to say much more than I like it or I couldn't understand it. Those are usually my only opinions. Secondly I like to follow a poet along for a while before I make any kind of commentary, most poems are best understood as part of an overall body of work.

Both "I like it," and I couldn't understand it," are valuable pieces of information to a poet.

I concur with Lavonne, and will go as far to say that those are perhaps the two MOST valuable pieces of information a reader could offer. 

Add 'it's boring' to that, to make three, and I concur.

Cheers

milner

Agree with Milner, but "I was bored" is both more accurate and humane. Great Poems follow these 3 stages during revision: first boring, then likeable, then incomprehensible. Using this simple list, writers can decide when to stop revising, depending on whether they want a Bad Poem, a Good Poem, or Great Poem.  --Tom

Agree with Tom on the generally accepted expressional format of the Boringness Quotient.  (Although I have seen it notated in yet another exciting, yet palatable twist, "It bored me".

I also appreciate hearing about typos and (potentially unintentional) spelling or grammatical errors in my writing.  It's not too risky a proposition to point out those sorts of things to a writer, and it certainly is very helpful to those who take pride in workmanship, or are perfectionists of the best worst sort.

I understand what you mean, Brian. Although 99% of my poems never use swearing I have written about half a dozen where the language is totally crucial to the poem.

On another board I tried out a couple of them and the site admin wrote that he had found my poems disturbing but that the language I'd used had NOT been gratuitous but was actually intrinsic.

One was a gang-related poem using 'street talk' and gangsters just DON'T use polite language, especially in the situation of my poem.

The other was about a situation when I was a teenager and was racially abused and physically attacked by three blokes who wanted to rape me and there was a certain amount of verbal badinage before they made their move. Fortunately they failed but I feel that the language is integral to the whole poem.

If the moderators will agree I can post the two poems in question. I do admit that they use a fair amount of swearing but that I simply can't see any other way of getting across the reality of the situation I'm describing.

Could we have a ruling on this question, please?

No problems here with such language, Linda. Gratuitous use would probably get rejected on grounds of sub-standard poetry.

I'd advise you not to put too many poems up at the same time. They get better attention if spread out some, rather than in a bunch. That's not a rule though, only a tip.

Cheers

milner

fucking serious? what the fucking fuck.

not that i know of, and i'd be rather unwilling to do so.  but,
that's just me.

tiko

Nope - no requirements for photos