Right on J. Doe

[anonamouse]

RIGHT ON! J. Doe

and for the record, it is not me.

But a name, comments, people do not seem to like, a little ego brusing. A counterbalance to all the ego buffing.

When are all you clam heads going to realize, people like that (and YDD) are/where your best friends.

Or would you rather prefer poetry by consensus?

 

[PatCarrington]

RIGHT ON! J. Doe

and for the record, it is not me.

But a name, comments, people do not seem to like, a little ego brusing. A counterbalance to all the ego buffing.

When are all you clam heads going to realize, people like that (and YDD) are/where your best friends.

Or would you rather prefer poetry by consensus?

i don't know who J Doe is, but if someone has figured out how to reincarnate YDD, i'll pass out the noisemakers and funny hats.

 

[Liar]

hell yeah

not that I've seen this Doe figure, but I see what you mean

 

[BooMerengue]

Who is J.Doe and what did he/she do?

 

[PatCarrington]

Who is J.Doe and what did he/she do?

i don't know for sure, but i'm assuming that person has started leaving constructive and useful criticism on some new poems.

good morning, booboo.

 

[Jennifer C]

Who is J.Doe and what did he/she do?

Hey Boo,

She is just a person who has been leaving critique on the new poems. People have thier own ideas on who she is but it's suspected she is a well known poet here at Lit.

That's all

 

[PatCarrington]

Hey Boo,

She is just a person who has been leaving critique on the new poems. People have thier own ideas on who she is but it's suspected she is a well known poet here at Lit.

That's all

i'm hoping she's YDD, come back as a motherly ghost to give the tough love needed for poetic growth, as she always did.

 

[Jennifer C]

i'm hoping she's YDD, come back as a motherly ghost to give the tough love needed for poetic growth, as she always did.

Morning Pat...

Hhmmm not familiar with YDD, must of been before my time here...

 

[anonamouse]

Who is J.Doe and what did he/she do?

I wish I could be so gentile.
seeing this almost made 1201 cry, but he didn't. He realizes what an abject failure he has been with his comments.

a sample:

"I agree with your anonymous friend (without his caustic comments), not your smutty buddy, who by the way is not fostering good poetry from you with her mindless strokes. She is just trying to be your friend and make you feel better, which is fine, but doesn't do anything to help you improve.

With your dogged passion for writing even though you are kicked around and drooled on, you still keep on keeping on. This makes you a poet in mindset and is admirable. Now, your writing on the other hand, needs an overhaul. Skip the fluff poets/threads in the poetry forum if you're serious about wanting to improve your skills. The thread, "Poetry in Progress" would serve you well."

This probably is the only comment that, I wouldn't mind seeing duplicated. Concern for poet, concern for the work. Fuck the ego.

and if you where over there you would have seen the posts.

 

[PatCarrington]

Morning Pat...

Hhmmm not familiar with YDD, must of been before my time here...

morning, jen.

you can go back and look on people's poems from spring/summer 2004, and see her comments.

for 4 or 5 months, she read and commented on every poem, every day.

she was incredibly knowledgable, and refreshingly blunt.

and she had a direct hand in the growth of many poets here, including me.

if a poem was good in her mind, she said so, and explained why.

if a poem was bad in her mind, she said so, and explained why.

no mush, no beating around the bush - just the truth, and always with explanation.

 

[BooMerengue]

Good mornin Paddymedarlin!! Hows you? I loved YDD's comments; it would be better than great if she was back.

I don't understand the post about 1201, anonamouse. Who said what? To who? Is that J.Doe's quote?

 

[Du Lac]

I wish I could be so gentile.
seeing this almost made 1201 cry, but he didn't. He realizes what an abject failure he has been with his comments.

a sample:

"I agree with your anonymous friend (without his caustic comments), not your smutty buddy, who by the way is not fostering good poetry from you with her mindless strokes. She is just trying to be your friend and make you feel better, which is fine, but doesn't do anything to help you improve.
With your dogged passion for writing even though you are kicked around and drooled on, you still keep on keeping on. This makes you a poet in mindset and is admirable. Now, your writing on the other hand, needs an overhaul. Skip the fluff poets/threads in the poetry forum if you're serious about wanting to improve your skills. The thread, "Poetry in Progress" would serve you well."

This probably is the only comment that, I wouldn't mind seeing duplicated. Concern for poet, concern for the work. Fuck the ego.

and if you where over there you would have seen the posts.

While J.Does other comments are very neutral and I find done with grace, this comment was the one I found offensive. The part about the smutty buddy and the Doe's personal thoughts on this should have been attached in a PM. There was no need for it. The rest of the comment is done well and I feel we all have room to grow. Is that not why we are here? So I disagree that this is the comment I would like to see more of. I would like to see less of this type of personal direction on another comment left by a poet and more constructive positive critique on the poem itself.

The second comment on the "fluff poet threads" was also not needed. We all go where we are comfortable at that time of our growth. Some chose not to be degraded by the negative comments made by others. While we learn about ourselves, our writing and our egos we move from thread to thread. To come out and call threads as fluff is indirectly degrading poets who write there and is not needed in this commentary. All that needed to be said is that I suggest that you bring your work to this thread and see how it will help you grow in your writing adventure. This still gets the point across while not placing a negative wall around the commenter's suggestions. There are ways of critiquing a poem with respect, grace and dignity that still get the point across.

du lac~

 

[Jennifer C]

While J.Does other comments are very neutral and I find done with grace, this comment was the one I found offensive. The part about the smutty buddy and the Doe's personal thoughts on this should have been attached in a PM. There was no need for it. The rest of the comment is done well and I feel we all have room to grow. Is that not why we are here? So I disagree that this is the comment I would like to see more of. I would like to see less of this type of personal direction on another comment left by a poet and more constructive positive critique on the poem itself.

The second comment on the "fluff poet threads" was also not needed. We all go where we are comfortable at that time of our growth. Some chose not to be degraded by the negative comments made by others. While we learn about ourselves, our writing and our egos we move from thread to thread. To come out and call threads as fluff is indirectly degrading poets who write there and is not needed in this commentary. All that needed to be said is that I suggest that you bring your work to this thread and see how it will help you grow in your writing adventure. This still gets the point across while not placing a negative wall around the commenter's suggestions. There are ways of critiquing a poem with respect, grace and dignity that still get the point across.

du lac~

Thank you du, I completely agree.

Seeing as I am the 'smutty buddy' reffered to in 'J Doe's' comment I feel I have to have my say.

There was no need to refer to my comment at all in her critique, she was supposed to comment on the poem, not others opinions of the poem.

It's comments like that that discourage others from leaving public comments and that is not right.

It was a dig at me as well as a critique comment and other peoples poems shouldn't be the playground for that kind of behaviour, it was unnecessary .

I've said my piece and now I am done.

Thank you.

 

[PatCarrington]

Good mornin Paddymedarlin!! Hows you? I loved YDD's comments; it would be better than great if she was back.

I don't understand the post about 1201, anonamouse. Who said what? To who? Is that J.Doe's quote?

i think 1201 was quoting a comment made by this J. Doe person on a poem, and how it was reminiscent of YDD's comments in that is contained the things that a real poet needs and looks for in commentary:

1) concern for the poet
2) concern for the poem itself
3) truth
4) and most importantly, total disregard for the poet's ego.


it states opinion with explanation, and gives sound, unflinching advice as to the quality and lack thereof of specific threads, even pointing the poet to a thread that is all about serious writing and the desire to improve it by opening your words up to the whips and briars of others...in other words, realizing that your own ego is a poison to your creativity.



oh...and 1201 and anonamouse are one and the same.

 

[Angeline]

While J.Does other comments are very neutral and I find done with grace, this comment was the one I found offensive. The part about the smutty buddy and the Doe's personal thoughts on this should have been attached in a PM. There was no need for it. The rest of the comment is done well and I feel we all have room to grow. Is that not why we are here? So I disagree that this is the comment I would like to see more of. I would like to see less of this type of personal direction on another comment left by a poet and more constructive positive critique on the poem itself.

The second comment on the "fluff poet threads" was also not needed. We all go where we are comfortable at that time of our growth. Some chose not to be degraded by the negative comments made by others. While we learn about ourselves, our writing and our egos we move from thread to thread. To come out and call threads as fluff is indirectly degrading poets who write there and is not needed in this commentary. All that needed to be said is that I suggest that you bring your work to this thread and see how it will help you grow in your writing adventure. This still gets the point across while not placing a negative wall around the commenter's suggestions. There are ways of critiquing a poem with respect, grace and dignity that still get the point across.

du lac~

Well said, du.

There is a big difference between objective critque and "ego bruising." How such "tough love" furthers anyone's writing is lost on me. Sorry all you arbiters of what is right for poetry but I think all you do is make others who are less confident feel inferior. Maybe that makes the commenter feel like a better poet or reader of poetry, but how does it help the person who posted the poem?

I love comments like:

Your poem has cliche here and here and here. Here are ways to avoid cliche.

The verb tenses here and here are different and therefore I don't understand what lines x and y are intended to mean.

You need to run a spell check and/or edit your poem because the errors are detracting from the reader's ability to understand/appreciate your writing.

You've mixed your metaphors and it affects meaning. Here is one way you could fix it.

Those are examples of objective criticism. They are specific. They help a writer reconstruct the poem so that it communicates, creates images, does whatever it is supposed to do more effectively. They are appropriate for someone who wants to write a better poem.

These comments, on the other hand are not.

Your poem is no good, and your friends aren't helping you by saying it is.

Get over your ego and learn to write.

People admire and drool all over you, but your writing is weak.

Write this way/like this person and you will be a better poet.

They generalize and make judgments about the poet and his or her friends that may or may not be true, but have nothing to do with the writing--the lines, the words and the way they are cobbled together. They are appropriate for bashing the ego of the poet and, perhaps, stroking that of the commenter. They make newbies who are unsure of whether they even belong in a poetry community want to go away.

I don't see how such "feedback" serves any positive purpose, but if one disagrees and feels compelled to psychoanalyze the poet, why not send an email or a pm? What is the purpose of doing otherwise? Making public flogging part of the poet's "growth"?

Personally, I think people who generalize this way in comments do so because they are unable to be precise about how to improve a poem or they don't know enough about the techniques of writing poems to say anything specific. YDD was someone I respected because while she would say a poem was weak or undeserving of the high votes others gave it, she also was spot on about why she thought this. I never saw her comments as meanspirited. I don't respect meanspirited.

People have different reasons for writing. Some people want to be praised, period. Who am I to judge that? The ones who honestly want to learn and improve make themselves known.

Just my opinion, of course, but I like to think it's an educated one.

 

[PatCarrington]

good morning, missing person.

that's what makes the world go 'round - lots of ways to skin a cat, and all that.

i use "total disregard for a poet's ego" as a direct quote from YDD - and also,
"ego is toxic to creativity." those are words she used to me, and to others i know of.

and i agree with them 100%.

and 1201 started this thread, i think, simply to compare the similarities of YDD's method of criticism and the recent critiques left by J. Doe.

 

[BooMerengue]

Thank you, Ange! You had said something similar a long time ago, and I'm glad to hear it again, especially from someone who knows from whence they speak. I was in Management training classes and was taught the same thing. Praise what a person does well, before bringing up their errors, and don't bring he saids/she saids into it at all.

Thank you.

oh...and 1201 and anonamouse are one and the same.

He is?? Why??

 

[Du Lac]

Thank you Angeline , said with respect, dignity and grace. I appreciate your comments. On a personal note: Thank you for comprehending exactly what I have been trying to get across in my posts of late. Mean spirited is not needed. Constructive criticism with objective viewpoints backed up with the integrity of guidelines and helpful hints is where it is at.

blessings
Du Lac

 

[PatCarrington]

oh...and 1201 and anonamouse are one and the same.

He is?? Why??

if i remember, he did it when someone started 1-bombing poems anonomously,
but i'm not positive.

but he does not try to hide the fact that it's him. he uses it as an open-to-all
alter-ego, it seems to me.

 

[BooMerengue]

YDD always said the kindest things to me. Even said she loved my Nostalgia pieces and would like to see them in a book!! I floated for days on that one!! lol I do wish she was still here.

 

[PatCarrington]

YDD always said the kindest things to me. Even said she loved my Nostalgia pieces and would like to see them in a book!! I floated for days on that one!! lol I do wish she was still here.

yes, she was kind.

but she was also unafraid to be harsh, if she thought it deserving. and she always did it in a way that her concern for both poet and poem stayed at the surface.

and once she began to know each poet, and their skills and level of experience, she tailored her critiques to each individual.

i have not seen any comments by J Doe other than the one on this thread. perhaps when he/she gets to know the writers better through their work (if he/she lasts that long), the same trimming of personal suits may take place.

 

[BooMerengue]

if i remember, he did it when someone started 1-bombing poems anonomously,
but i'm not positive.

but he does not try to hide the fact that it's him. he uses it as an open-to-all
alter-ego, it seems to me.

I wish he and I could get along better. He usually says good things, and has given me pretty good comments, all but once! lol

But I'm the type, I get over spats and mads as soon as I smoke a cigarette. Bearing grudges is a sin for good reason.

If I made an Alt who would I be??? hhmmm??? laughing at whats coming...

I do it in Chat on ocassion but as soon as I start talking everyone knows its me! Ha!

 

[Rybka]

Fyi

i'm hoping she's YDD, come back as a motherly ghost to give the tough love needed for poetic growth, as she always did.

An e-mail dated 12/24/04:

To whom it may concern:
Going through my aunt's computer, I found an e-mail from her to you. - This is just to inform you that Yvonne Deborah DeVotie passed away on December 3, 2004 after an extended illness. She had been suffering from breast cancer that had spread throughout her body.

Sincerely; F.M. DeVotie

 

[PatCarrington]

An e-mail dated 12/24/04:

i got the same e-mail, fish. ...in a more roundabout way.

 

[BooMerengue]

An e-mail dated 12/24/04:

I remember you showing that to us, Rybby. That makes me sad all over again.