Crap title for what I hope is an interesting thread.

What do you all feel defines 'getting better' when it comes to writing poetry?
Is it down to the amount of poetry that gets published, the comments you receive on your work? Or is it more subjective, do YOU judge your work and understand that it is improving.

For me, i certainly feel my poetry has improved over the last couple of years, but I dont submit to journals anymore, I get the same standard of comments on each piece (more or less) and I perform to the same sized crowds who give me the same sized applause.

I know there is an obvious, standard answer, in that poetry that is 'better written' is an improvement over poetry that is 'poorly written' but I dont always feel that tells the whole story.

Is this even interesting? I dont know.

On holiday this week so feeling relaxed and unhurried with jobs etc.

I regard my poetry like books that I read. Some are very good reads but make little lasting impression. Others stay in the mind for ages and keep cropping up. I often recommend these books and those that take up the recommendation sometimes don't get it!

I view poetry that way. I don't think I'm capable of writing a novel but I do learn from those I admire greatly McCarthy, Murakami, Mitchell etc for their ability to draw pictures.

Has this answered your question Stu? Definitely NOT!

My advice. Never be satisfied. Never stare at a blank page. Never force it. Never go to bed without a pencil and notebook, never give up!

I suspect that if you write poetry without a strong dose of self-doubt you end up writing rubbish for the rest of your life...

My advice? Read as widely as possible, keep learning, and don't stop...

interesting points guys.

i suppose what i was getting at was that if its subjective, as in if the best way to judge an improvement was internally, then how accurate can that be? could that just be that your tastes are changing, or that you hold your own work in a higher regard because the content has come from your head and is being gauged by your standards.

does that make any sense???

so is the mark of a truly great poet to be able to read his own work with the same objectivity as the rest of his readers?

I've popped back on line again, just to have a moment with you on this dicey subject.

I never know whether I'm improving. I can create an idea in two-three different styles, understanding that different readers have different 'poetry' tastes. I love having that ability but it doesn't make one or the other or the third approach any better, just different.

The only criteria I really try to improve with every poem is: 'the greatest possible meaning in the fewest possible words.' So I really have to know what my purpose is, and what audience I'm targetting. Because I firmly believe that a poet must, and does, target his readers.
How can there not be variations of craftsmanship to suit your intent? And while you guide your reader along your 'perceived path', your power is limited to what the reader brings to the poem in his own experience.

In 'PICNIC' detail piled on detail; I knew that; but the scope of the poem was a net far-flung, and it needed an intimacy available only through sensuality that tried to envelop the reader completely before the real thrust was felt: attitude. From the mundane scene to the life-developing ideas of survival, in any arena - really -symbolism. I hope the poem was multi-layered, but not obviously. Is it actually 'good'? Who knows. Did I cut off more than I could chew? Probably. Do I care? No.

Read your own work sincerely. If you like it; it's good. Let it rest awhile and make it better, through sheer craftsmanship. Above all, read what you write just as though it were from another person's brain. If you enjoy your own work, you've passed the test. You really are a good judge. Stop worrying.

thanks both, lovely points.

i'm far less interested in how to gauge it in my own work and more interested in how others gauge their own work.

cynthia, your point about reading from another persons brain is bang on what i was trying to get at. is subjectivity the one thing that stops poetry from evolving?

david, quite right that a lot of what people say should be dismissed, but surely thats because they too are coming from a one-mind/subjective view. how do we get an overview of what is 'good'. maybe its just what sells the most, as that is the best way we have of seeing the popular view. but the biggest selling poetry books last year werent, in my opinion, the best.

for me, it certainly isnt whats in the bigger journals. have a look at this months POETRY magazine, its full of work that i wouldnt comment on if i saw it on WOL.

its these entirely trivial but irksome things that keep me up at night.

thanks david. you are right, its a difficult question to ask. i hope to get away from the idea that i was asking about my own work and towards the general theme. i see nothing but intelligent, sensible people on here and they are just the kind of opinions i crave.

Stu, although positive stroking is good for us all, it does little for the quality of one's work. It is plainly obvious to me over many years of being involved with WOL, initially as a contributor and then after getting adopted by the management team, that there is a gradual churn of healthy commenters, who use the site daily and offer support and encouragement, and perhaps the odd suggestion/edit or two. These names eventually fade away, gladly to be replaced piecemeal with new recruits.

How can you tell if your poetry is improving?

Bloody difficult unless you measure it by sales of books, money from standup, competitions (the highly rated ones not the nonsense ones) or national recognition in some other way.

Some towns are beginning to appoint Laureates. Useless in my view for the individual, good for the town's art credentials.

I'm afraid trying to measure one's work is perhaps like a race with a goose. Only you will know if you catch it!

Personally I settle for there being no deterioration from my early years pap.

A tad provocative, this one - bit of a polemic peut etre ?

I frequent poetry dos and over years there are some whose work is deffo improving and the vast majority who, to put it bluntly, are not. They clog up the whole scene of the art of poetry with their drivel and doggerel and as long as people clap and say how great their tripe was they go home all aglow and churn out more.
To encounter a good poem at these affairs is like sitting supping nectar. I recommend Aidan Clark's "Jibber jabber" (on youtube) for an example of really great poetry delivered well.
Now, to the question in hand: When I put my poems into the printer at New Year - following countless revisions and decisions and indecisions I truly thought it was pretty damn good.
Then doubts began to creep in - I put the printer on hold and reworked the whole collection - forensically - line by line, word by word. Clunky lines were sluiced, tautologies rooted out - frankly my 'pretty damn good' had been an amateurish shambles.
Then a mate at a do said how he wished he had had his stuff proof read as his familiarity with his work militated against his being able to spot mistakes in grammar and spelling - so I grabbed my stuff back from the printer and passed it to a professional proof reader - it came back covered in more red ink than my schooldays' maths homework.
So another rewriting of all 82 poems ensued. Yet more culling of poor wording - some of the earlier versions are on this site - not really worth reading - they make me cringe.
This very morning the printing press is rolling. The stuff is as good as I can make it - time to call a halt on the endless vain search for perfection - it stays as it is.
I know I've improved - I'm not ashamed / afraid to say that my work is now bloody marvellous - it was 'good enough' prior to 6 months solid editing and revising - but 'good enough' is not good enough - we are engaged upon the most sublime art form there is - the most difficult to master yet the easiest to produce if one's aim is rhyming doggerel. It's a Sisyphean task this poetry biz.
I would love to be able to really say what I think of others' work, not here, but at live dos where locals come and stand and pronounce their meaningless trite rhyming ditties but that is not the way we Brits roll - they won't improve - but at least they ain't out mugging pensioners.

Anyhow - swiftly moving on - you know your work is improving when you bleedin' well set to work, and through gritted teeth and mental agony you improve the stuff.

p.s One has to become like Herod - slaughtering the innocents - up to your elbows in the gore of slain words, unnecessary stanza, crap lines, over and over till the bleating ceases.

Oo 'eck!

thanks rick for a great response. i had hoped to be provocative and it seems i was successful. lots of good points here, i too go to a lot of poetry shenanigans and i do agree in part with the general consensus that (as graham mentioned earlier re: WOL) there are always good souls willing to be positive even though they may not feel that way. i dont quite find it such a herculean task to locate good poetry at these events as you do, but then i expect we look for quite different things in the poems we enjoy. thanks again for taking the time to respond.

I tend to bite my tongue - always encouraging those who are needy - poetry dos seem to attract those in need of some morale boosting. I can generally find summat positive - and it is good to see people who were trembling bags of jelly now standing up and speaking their words. All power to them

It's the smug ones who get my goat - they think they have 'arrived' and claim an unspoken yet palpable 'entitlement' when their work is at best derivative - either Pam Ayres or John Cooper Clarke spring to mind as the ideals that these people adhere to.

I guess it's me own fault for being an anorak where writing is concerned - I love language - its use in all forms from the demotic to the hyperbolic - and to endure the trivia that passes for poetry - not even worthy of a Clinton card on many occasions gets to me.

It's a lonely art form - one is one's own most acute critic - never satisfied but always striving to improve. Sharpen. Make finer definitions - we, you, I will never get there but once one sets off on the slog for the perfect poem then that's it.

ho hum eh?

Rick.

You go, Rick! I agree with 90% (maybe more) of your comments. I did appreciate the softening tone toward 'live performances of the newly initiated. How do you qualify 'smug'?

God only knows where my work stands in your severe/excellent judgement. I would actually benefit one way or the other; so have a go anytime. I'm strong. And I am not familiar with weapons of destruction; so you can wander about at night unperturbed by my shadow. Although I can't be sure about whispers.?

I was not keen on your "to fellow poets" - reason? I find poets writing about poetry kinda defeats the object - like blocked authors writing about an author with writers' block - pure prejudice on my part ?
That said, I do have one poetry pome - "I hate the bastard" about a composite phoney poet upon whose head lavish praises are heaped - it goes down very well at dos - albeit I hate the poem - I performed it recently and earned the description 'ribald poet' - at which I took umbrage until I thought over my choice for that evening - they were a bunch of smug snowflakes so I had gone all demotic purely to annoy them and get a /some reaction ?

But your energy and vocabulary - I do love a good vocab - shine through. Do you perform? I'll bet you'd make a great live act ?

'Smug?' I've a few in mind - little men with large comfortable stomachs - no talent - trotting out trite "listen to me, I've been published, aren't I clever?" Witties while peddling their 5.99 collections of punny cliches - with optional seaside postcard innuendoes. ?

They live, they breed, they proliferate, give me ten minutes alone in a room with them and a Dalek beside me ha ha ?

Rick

I ought to add, in my defence, that people often ask what I thought about something they've written - not the arrivistos who require no encouragement - I always find summat positive and if there's just a couple of lines in a beginner's poem that work I go, "You have 'the poetry in you - go for it."
More often, when long pieces turn up I usually counsel, "There's a great poem in there all you have to do is edit it and shape it until it stands shining and beautiful" - as often great ideas are drowned in tautologies and over explication - a trait of mine too hence the savagery to which I subject my stuff :)

ps I have a fair few people to whom I send my stuff prior to putting it out anywhere - some are hyper critical but since they are genuine in their love of the Art - poetry is the great art - I take it all on the chin :)

I just found this article I saved in my docs - it is pertinent to the debate here :

Extracts of a letter from Ezra Pound to a publisher Harriet Monroe (Jan 1915)
Dear H.M.: Poetry must be as well written as prose. Its language must be a fine language, departing in no way from speech save by a heightened intensity (i.e. simplicity). There must be no book words, no
periphrases, no inversions. ...

...There must be no interjections. No words flying off to nothing. Granted one can't get perfection every shot, this must be one's intention.

Rhythm must have meaning. It can't be merely a careless dash off, with no grip and no real hold to the words and sense, a tumty turn tumty turn turn ta.

There must be no cliches, set phrases, stereotyped journalese. The only escape from such is by precision, a result of concentrated attention to what one is writing. The test of a writer is his ability for such concentration and for his power to stay concentrated till he gets to the end of his poem, whether it is two lines or two hundred.

[There should be] no straddled adjectives (as 'addled mosses dank'), no Tennysonian- ness of speech; nothing — nothing that you couldn't, in some circumstance, in the stress of some emotion, actually say.

Every literaryism, every book word, fritters away a scrap of the reader's patience,

Language is made out of concrete things. General expressions in non- concrete terms are a laziness; they are talk, not art, not creation. They are the reaction of things on the writer, not a creative act by the writer.

[I see this in many poems where the words are all about floaty emotions - usually anger or grief over a broken heart but nowt concrete - just dreamwaffle - I've many such-like half done pomes awaiting a decent shaping - all about a lost love. RG]


(Pound then goes on to slag off just about all his contemporaries - some things never change :) )

[back to Pound]

...The only adjective that is worth using is the adjective that is essential to the sense of the passage, not the decorative frill adjective.

...Would to God I could see a bit more Sophoclean seventy in the ambitions of mes amis et confreres. The general weakness of the writers of the new school is looseness, lack of rhythmical construction and intensity...

Hinc illae lachrymae. ...

https://archive.org/stream/LettersOfEzraPound1907-1941/letters_djvu.txt)

so, I guess the closer you get to Pound's ideal, the better your poetry: Cutting out dead wood - stripping away useless flab - mindless repetition of a good phrase, showboating alliterations etc etc- that's what improving is all about.

quite alright! everything needs corrupting once in a while!

It's a shame that's burned out. I was enjoying that.

Never intended to re-enter, but the comment about my 'To fellow poets' really caught my interest. I fight hard not to write for fellow poets. It's a real battle. So, in that case, I was honest. And I believe, with a perfectly acceptable subject upon which to ruminate. Excellent contribution about Pound.

My kids keep me well in check, if I ever get artsy-fartsy. ''Write for regular people! They love your stuff because it really 'talks to them' ''. Bless their hearts; they are my unabashed fans. But I do listen - mostly. Once in a while I just want to be deep and mysterious. I tell them I'm allowed - it's my brain.

Aye - my response to that "Fellow Poets" was born of pure prejudice ?
I hate pop songs which list other singers - in Hull there was a plethora of poor doggerel regarding dead musician heroes of 2016 nobody mentioned Lemmy of Motorhead though :)
It's great if your kids like your stuff - my daughter pressed me to publish - I am agin it by inclination as once it's in print a pome inevitably dies - like picking a flower.
My latest here, "Twister" should never have been printed but now I'm stuck with a C- pome ho hum. I blame edit fatigue ?

Rick, Lemmy (RIP) died in very late 2015 so you can probably let them off...

I would never say my poetry has improved. My line of thinking is so arbitrary and in my own head...I'd say it moves back and forth on a sliding scale - but that scale isn't in 'good' or 'bad'.

My chief impetus is not to bore myself. If I'm bored by it, I'm likely to do something drastic like cut it up and rearrange it a random (I do that quite often as part of the writing process anyway - it's one I keep coming back to.

I used to write what I thought people would like - or at least those were the poems I let others see. Despite my inclinations toward innovative writing, I would try out writing like Heaney or Muldoon, or even once Craig Raine. Then I discovered cut-n-paste and suddenly it started fitting into place: what I needed to was write for myself, and do the things that made me interested. I write the things I want to read. As the things I read are generally experimental, modernist, innovative, so my poetry has to be that. Then I felt as if I was going somewhere.

I mean, if your instincts are telling you that rhyme & metre is the way for you that's the way you're gonna go. If your instincts are toward the surreal, the cut-up, the open form, or whatever, that's what you're gonna do in the end.

I like to think I'm constantly improving, but maybe I'm just changing because I don't like to stay in one place artistically for too long.