Robert Peake is ready for your questions about poetry! The next Poetry Advice Column (in case you missed the first, about rejection, find it here) is in the works and Robert wants to know what you want to know.
Don’t miss this opportunity to ask for advice (and no one need know it is your question)!
Send a question (or two or three) to Robert at: advice (at) readwritepoem (dot) org.
Robert,
What exactly makes poetry good and what makes it bad? I know cliches are bad. But I am an amateur and I feel so uncertain about what I write and I really don’t have a critical eye to judge me. My husband is a copy write editor and he helps me with typos. Which I make since I am a terrible typist. He tells me when he likes something and he is pretty honest. I think? Could you possibly answer this question?
Regards,
Pamela
Pamela, I think I’ve got my question for the next column, but this is certainly another good one. You’re right–writing poetry is not like copy editing. Typos are clearly incorrect, and can be fixed. Poems can’t. There is a subjectivity inherent with any art. Rather than “good” or “bad” as an objective standard, what poet and poems most speak to you? What are your challenges in writing poems equally meaningful? How can you grow as an artist by aspiring–not to write more “good” poems, but to write poems more assuredly your own? Finding your thing and really doing it is what deep fun in the arts is all about. Sometimes those artists who find the deep fun and stick with it get called “great,” or their works get called “great” or “good.” But even with something seemingly objective, there are still detractors to the “greats.” Worry more about learning, aspiring, emulating, finding your you thing and doing it like crazy than anything else.
Good luck! Have fun!