Well, despite good intentions, I have flamed out at Erato.
I was around for the beginning of the site, and it was a lot of fun. I think we were all a little giddy at having a place to talk metrical poetry, but it was approached with joy and humility. Then something happened.
I haven’t fit in there in a long time. I don’t believe meter and/or rhyme is better or worse than free verse, and the whole idea of writing empty vessels that happen to be able to be called “sonnets” bores the fuck out of me.
Back to poetry on the blog exclusively, I think.
There are times that we grow beyond the skin that used to sit comfortably over our bones and musculature. My sense for quite some time has been that Erato has become hidebound and very much an “Old Boys’ Club” in many ways. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s why Michael Juster left. That’s oky; let them remain larval; you just shed your pupal sheath, unfurl your wings, and turn in a Juliefly.
Yay, more for us then.
It’s important that we outgrow our schoolyards, Julie. Congrats!
There are a few individuals there who think that all poetry has to be written in a certain style, and have no idea how to approach anything written outwith these peramaters. They have been increasingly vocal of late. It’s almost as if they’ve been trying to root out anyone who doesn’t conform to their narrowness of vision.
I decided a few weeks ago that I wasn’t posting any more poems there.
It’s a shame because there are some people there whose poems and critiques I really admire e.g. Oliver Murray, Katy Evans-Bush, Clay Stockton, Rose Kelleher, Wendy Videlock etc. But I can still read them without posting anything more of my own, so that’s OK.
Read the poem that broke your camel’s back over there, and liked it…I have to say, what baffles me at Erato is certain regulars are routinely let off the hook for drivel, while anyone posting a genuinely challenging poems has an 80% chance of dogged pile-ons of misreads which, even after they’ve been dispelled by the author, frequently persist.
Your poem was repeatedly taken to task for being a poor take on Matthew Shephard; when you pointed out it wasn’t intended to refer to him, the criticism flailed about without a point. I’ve run into precisely the same thing over there. My condolences.
One must ever mind one’s fuck. Better a sudden blaze than a slow, oozing rot, no? Meter? Not I. Two left feet here.
Oh, my. Did I just write “fuck” in public? Wow. Twice, even.
Hedge, even if I’m a Juliefly, I’m still a bug, dammit. 😀
Rebecca and Rebecca, thank you both.
Rob, in a way, you vindicate me. But in a way, it’s a little more depressing to think that it’s not just me. Y’know? I guess I was perplexed by Alan, but to have Carol come in and handwave and declare I should stick to sonnets–especially given that the last sonnet I posted got exactly the same response and she sneered that it was no “Sparrow”–just gets my goat. I guess I’m supposed to churn out one poem forever. Ack. I guess I know how a typecast actor feels.
anonymous, like I said to Rob, it’s nice to get a little validation, but it sucks that others have encountered this same silliness.
Agnes, a slow oozing rot with a dessert of flaming jerk. That’s me!
I’ve felt uncomfortable on many of the boards for a while now. I attribute this mostly to a flipped switch: I began suddenly to like poems I would previously have disliked, and I began to disagree vehemently with many critiques I would previously have thought sound. It was like my brain had gotten pregnant and was lurching around alternately vomiting and craving pica. So LolaTwo/Tricia/Not-a-Finger is mostly no more at these places.
Not that I have any poems to workshop at the moment, but I reached a point where I felt it was important to trust my own judgement and my own impulses. I realised I was posting them because it’s nice to get feedback, but in fact it really didn’t need to be workshop-type feedback because there was very little chance I was going to use anyone’s suggestions.
Tricia, vomiting and pica. Now there’s a poetic image for you. I know exactly what you mean.
Harry, I went for a couple of years trusting my inner whatsit, and it served me well. But I wondered if I was falling into bad habits, so I decided to peel the socks off and stick the toes in. Sadly, I realize too late that I picked the absolute worst place for where I am right now, poetry-wise.
In any case, being told to go back to writing sonnets is rather like being told to learn my place. And if there is one thing I’ve never learned, it’s my place.
Prologue: I’ve nothing much to add to what’s already been typed, but I’m going to waffle on in any case.
Chapter 1: good you haven’t returned to the thread to respond to subsequent comments – silence is dignity in these cases.
Chapter 2: workshops are excellent when you’ve got something to learn, but become less useful once you’ve done the learning on offer. People do outgrow places – my personal example is returning to a live workshop after 3 years on the internet. The second time around I just wasn’t getting anything useful for my money (except praise for my much improved writing and critting skills, but why pay good money for praise?)
Chapter 3: even so, people shouldn’t write poems in isolation; getting feedback from mates is useful for honing existing poems and generating ideas for new poems. Hopefully the blog should provide you with this, as long as you can keep up with the reciprocality thingy.
Epilogue: I seem to be in the middle (or coming to the end of) one of my most productive poetry writing phases ever. The thought of formally workshopping all that material – you want me to write how many crits? – well, ick! I just hope my inner critters are up to the job, otherwise I’m heading for the bunfight scene at the end of Bugsy Malone: fun to watch, I’m sure, but not so much fun when the dry-cleaning bill arives …
pzkfx
It’s interesting reading about how poetry workshopping fulfils different criteria for different people.
I never did do Erato, but did do PFFA but not much lately, because I haven’t got much time (says she ducking out on blogs for a while, trying to let on its vaguely educational!).
The things I learned from PFFA were critting skills, or how many different ways there are to read and deconstruct a poem, and then how much that improved your own understanding of the possibilites of what your own work could do. I think I only posted about 2 or 3 poems ever, because I preferred to read other peoples and see how I engaged with their work.
Half the problem with workshopping poems is that you can worry that what you’re going to end up with is a composite of what people like and not what you had originally intended to write. But that’s not to say that you don’t learn things; like how to better craft your language and where striking imagery can push something into another dimension.
Having bought both Rob’s book and Julie’s book recently, I find that in a collection I have a much better idea of what they’re doing poetry wise. In a collection a poet may have a particular theme or idea that carries the weight; the sum being greater than the parts (in a good way!). When you spend time becoming tuned into the poet’s method of looking at things lots of pennies fall into lots of different slots… but thats a step on from workshopping.
There comes a time when you do outgrow things as Hedgie points out – an unbelievable freedom, but also quite scary too, possibly!
“I’m still a bug”
Yeah, but you’re our bug.
I don’t feel that I’ve outgrown workshops, just that I’m jigging left, and they’re jigging right.
Bugs
Julie, I think you gave me my first crit ever at pffa. I never cared much for Erato, so I have no comment on your presence/absence there, but I am struck by how many of the no-longer-workshopping comments here are from people who were the reason I learned anything at pffa in the first place (e.g., you, Harry, LolaTwo, Rik). I could just be getting cranky and jaded in my old age, but I miss the *old* pffa, both for general conversation and for poetry critique. I think there is a point where one doesn’t need a workshop to polish one’s own work effectively: workshops are helpful at cultivating a less egotistical, more nonjudgmental stance about one’s own work that makes it easier, paradoxically, to identify its strengths and weaknesses without the aid of others. But while the writers don’t need the workshops, the workshops go on needing a diverse mix of experienced writers, especially where otherwise the workshop will be dominated by a single or a handful of personalities and perspectives (as I gather might be the case at Erato). Growing beyond a workshop is natural for individual writers, but — seems to me — a loss for writing communities as a whole. Still, hard to keep posting if you’re only punished for it; being a noble mentor can only take you so far. 🙂
When someone says that I gave them a crit at pffa, or aapc, I cringe. Because some of the time I was helpful, and the rest of the time I was a bitch with absolutely no consideration for others. So I can’t say I miss the “old” pffa, because I certainly don’t miss the me I was then. Power corrupts some people, and I’m one of them.
Heh. Well, I don’t seem to have kept the crit, and as I recall, it was not overly warm and ego-preserving. But it was helpful, and it encouraged me to stay and participate at pffa, which was the best possible thing that could have happened to me as a writer. So you did me some good, corrupted though you may have been at the time.