I was reading a poem on a poetry board. It was in the style of a famous poet, or perhaps would be called a parody (at times, I find it difficult to figure out how people use those terms).

In any case, I loved the poem. It just delighted the pants off me. I wanted to comment on it, and found that I couldn’t offer a serious critique for two reasons:

1. I just loved it and didn’t care why, and
2. Because the poem was in the style of a different poet, or was a parody, I felt that any comment I could make would have been a waste of time for the poet.

I think that I discovered that I think of poetry as being the entire web of a person’s writing, not any individual poem. If I comment on a poem, it’s with an eye toward giving that poet as much insight as I’m capable of (which often isn’t much) to help them with the next poem, not with the one at hand.

That’s a foolish way of thinking. I didn’t even know that was my way of thinking until I said it.

The poem was awesome. I did tell the poet that. And then I got all slack-jawed and yokely.