Template On: How to Critique Your Poem

Congratulations on your poem! Take a moment to appreciate your hard work so far; this is vital for our next steps of self-critique. We're halfway there, and now it's time to dig into what we can do together to improve the piece. Whether this poem is going to your publisher or your school's biannual art magazine, its refinement is important. Any level of artist needs to establish effective critiquing methods; they can solidify your ideas and pull you just as much as the reader into the poem’s world.

I’ve written many poems that, upon revision, have drastically changed shape. There is no wrong way to revise poetry; all you have to do is start. Once you start and not only anticipate but appreciate the change you and this work are about to undergo together, you will come to believe in your process. I chose the template format because I often work through the aspects of critiquing a poem as if I were applying a template to it. Feeling unsure of where your piece is going or just needing that extra push is normal when you only have yourself in the revision process. As you refine, you decide what a piece needs; take advantage of outside critiques if you have them, but remember it’s up to you what to incorporate. A poet must satisfy their own needs within the piece before anyone else’s. You may just need something to help you get there, but you know what this poem needs because you feel it.

Above anything else, critique is about improvement of your work, reflection on what it's saying, and enjoying the direction it's going. That’s exactly what I'm here to help you do by providing a template to follow when continuing to critique your poem.

What is a critique in regard to poetry? I’d define it as an analysis of one's work, used to isolate the elements and meaning of a poem to weed out what isn’t working and ultimately lead to an improvement of the piece. A template is a guide that anyone can use to help them follow a structure and write more efficiently.

Rhythm in poetry is the pattern of sound in words or syllables you experience when reading. Rhythm can be measured using meters, which are groups of stressed or unstressed syllables that can indicate rhythm’s interaction with a line’s length. I’ve defined some of the most common elements of rhythm in poetry to better help you identify them. We’ll discuss alliteration, assonance, rhyme, and onomatopoeias. Alliteration occurs when similar sounds or letters appear at the start of or close to connecting words. Think of hot and heavy or slow and steady; try identifying these in your poem if you haven’t already, and make note of if it's intentional, how it adds to the line/stanza, and if it's something you want to continue. Assonance is the repeating sound of a vowel that occurs close together in non-rhyming syllables. An example of this could be what’s the word you heard or, famously, Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Rhyme is the repetition of sounds in between or at the end of words and is commonly used at the end of a line in poetry. Go to your poem now if you have it, and look around for repeating rhymes. There may be a certain sound that’s repeating, for example, the oo sound in size two shoe. Rhymes can also be less direct, and this is called Slant Rhymes, when words have the same vowels and different consonants or the other way around. An example of this could be there’s a sale in jail. These types of rhymes are common in writing and can often be done without knowing. Onomatopoeias are words whose sounds correspond with what’s being named. I think everyone can think of some words like this, for example, splash or quack.

Now that we’ve got some tools in our belt to help us discern what our current writing is saying on paper, we need to work on how it sounds out loud. Hearing and reading a poem out loud will help you distinguish where your flow is or where you stumble. You can also accomplish this by having someone else read your poem out loud to you or listening to a recording of your works. By doing this, you are identifying the sounds of your poem and where your rhythm begins and ends. Identifying these will help you decide if you want to change the poem.

When I revise my poems, I pay close attention to the flow of words by seeing if they sound nice together or clash in a way that adds to the mood of the poem. These literary elements are called euphonies and cacophonies, respectively.

So from the beginning, let's read and listen over again and track where our poem already features these elements, where it doesn’t but could, and carefully decide what stays or needs tweaking.

Structure or form in poetry is characterized by the particular order, grouping, and length of stanzas and lines. One of the more well-known poetry structures that I’ll use to explain is Shakespearean sonnets. These sonnets consist of fourteen lines that are separated into three quatrains and one couplet; they follow iambic pentameter and have an ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme. The letters of the ABAB rhyme scheme simply mean the same rhyme is repeated and alternated depending on its letter. There is also usually a volta between stanzas two and three. The Volta is Italian for “turn,” and it represents a change of argument or idea. Voltas are used to make the reader feel a specific way.

To understand the possibilities of structure, we need to understand what types of lines and stanzas there are. Different length stanzas are called different things. From a one-lined stanza to a stanza made of ten lines, these are the names: monostich, couplet, tercet,

quatrain, quintain, sestet, septet, octet, sepenserian, dizain. Let us look back at our poem again with this knowledge and examine what we already have in our poem. I workshopped a poem just the other day that has the potential to be a sonnet (you may have one, too). Try to identify the number of lines within each stanza and how many stanzas there are; after that, ask yourself if it’s already working, could it be tweaked in certain places or omitted from the poem but not forgotten? Where a line ends or the number of lines in a stanza can contribute to your tone and create a double meaning. Line breaks can be at the end of sentences or made anywhere within the line using one slash (/) in exchange for a period or two slashes (//) for a break in the stanza. It all depends on what you want visually and what it will sound like through your structure. When I write, I love using slashes to track when I want to pause for a breath or keep the line going visually but still create double meaning. I create double meaning with slashes by viewing it in three parts, once all together, and then separately reading what’s before and after the slash.

Go through these tools and identify what you want to achieve visually with the structure and if it aligns with your intentions for the poem.

Identifying the content of your poem can be done by isolating current themes and motifs. Themes can be described as broad ideas that are central to the story but not directly indicated; the poem needs motifs to reveal these better. Motifs are recurring ideas, objects, symbols, or images that contribute to an overarching theme. We can look through our poem again and once more isolate themes that are already present. What are some motifs we see being used? Now that we’ve identified them and made a list, we can ask ourselves if these were intentional or not. I would even make a separate list of motifs or themes you didn't intend to emphasize as much as you did; this may show you a new core meaning. This can also help you reestablish your intended core meaning.

Don’t get rid of any of your work as you change. I always save a copy of my draft poem in the same doc I’m editing so I can scroll back quickly if I feel I’ve lost my intention or taken out something that was a good line that may just need to be in a different poem.

When editing your piece, taking away isn’t always the best option. I’d recommend instead of deleting things try removing lines or stanzas to achieve a different meaning. This helps you isolate what is not working, and it gives you the opportunity to take it out and read it again. Maybe it’s just a different poem! Put it in another document and save it for later. Now that you’ve isolated and picked through the content, see how you feel. Switch around with the time you deliver information, maybe have the repetition of content mirror itself, or put the content in a different place if you want to slow down the reader. If you think you’re giving away too much, hide it in your poem. It’s your piece, so if you want to, make it a surprise.

What does it mean to improve your poem instead of finishing it? I would define improvement as an open process of changing your poem to better fit your intentions for the piece. Only you can decide when a poem is “finished,” but knowing when can be difficult, even for experienced poets. By focusing on the improvement of a poem, we can avoid unnecessary pressure and leave the work open to change.

Some closing questions to ask yourself are, “Is it closer to my intention?”, “How do I feel about the poem now compared to when I started?” “ Does it need to say more?” and “Did I achieve the goals I wanted to?” I hope that after our time together, you feel more capable of answering these questions on your own and taking control of your writing.

I like to ask myself those questions at the end of a workshopping session or critique because I get so wrapped up in the small details that the questions allow me to zoom out and understand what I’ve accomplished. Always remember to be as captivated by your poem as your audience is before you even have one; your interest will show. We’ve accomplished a lot together already. Thank you for sharing your time with me. I can’t wait to read all your beautiful poems one day.