How do you feel about comments on your poems?

I completely agree! It would be horrid if someone had spent months building up the courage to share their poem for it to be negatively commented on and thereby destroying that person's confidence and scaring them from ever pursuing the art further. That’s why we should always be mindful when doing so, that’s my opinion. Unless constructive criticism is called for, be precious with words in comment sections.

I completely agree with you Adam…

One of the greatest assets for any person giving a critique is understanding how to properly be constructive. I feel a lot of the time a person might simply connect to a written piece on a surface level - which is fine - but they don't dissect the work enough to truly know what is going on. In a way it is like reading to a blind person, they cannot envision what you're telling them unless you open their eyes with specifics.

Excellent constructive feedback isn't just about saying "I could feel how you felt in that moment," it is also about pinpointing why that emotion was felt. It also isn't about showering a writer with niceties either, because while a kind comment can be uplifting, it doesn't elevate the writing itself.

Now I'm not stating this to be a downer or vapid, I'm only talking to the point of constructive criticism - which is to aim to write better and evolve the work as a whole into something worth its merit.

So like you've said @nicki it is important to be more constructive than destructive. However, the two concepts aren't entirely mutually exclusive.

I think the big difference is how a person addresses the revision aspect. We want to deliver encouraging input, but we also want to point out when a particular piece of the written work isn't great.

I mean, would you want someone to tell you the truth, or lie to your face? What purpose would lying serve other than to hinder the possibility of improvement?

The best way to address critiques, in my opinion, is to simply state the facts with reinforced evidence taken directly from the work itself. This way we aren't imposing our ego onto the other writer's work, and we are also pointing out the flaws without question.

I usually make suggestions via questioning. So like if someone were to format their poem a particular way, I'll impose the question of why they elected to format it as such. Or, if someone wrote something that didn't make logical sense, I'd ask them via a suggestion.

For example, say someone wrote the sentence: Peter drove his car off the side of the road.

Well, this doesn't give us much to go off from does it? So I would ask them why did Peter drive his car off the side of the road, and what purpose does this event have for either character development or plot.

I find that challenging a person to think about what they've written is the best way to avoid ego battles and get the other writer to accept alternative interpretations on their own time. We can walk a horse to the water, but not force it to drink from the stream. It is all up to the writer to decide what to do with the intelligence they've been given.

Exactly! I mean don't get me wrong, I get a big ole smile on my face when I receive platitudes from other people, but I always wonder why a person enjoyed reading one of my poems. That is the kind of response that makes a huge difference for us writers because then we know what is working and what isn't. Which makes it even more easier to choose which material, that suits our writing style, to write about more often.

Initially I had this thought come up in my coursework at university. I'm in a Masters level program, and sometimes the critiques I've received during the weeks we have peer evaluations were like reading Instagram responses - all compliments and no constructivity.

It left me scratching my head and as time progressed into later weeks I began to get quite annoyed. One of two questions buzzed around in my head:

1. Are my peers being authentic and there is truly nothing worth critiquing?

2. Or, do they lack the ability to give constructive criticism?

Answering yes to either one of these questions would completely leave me dumbfounded. Cause nobody's work is perfect. Which made me lose faith in my peers as experts in the field. I mean I'd expect the lack of skill in undergraduate work (because that is where a person first develops these kinds of attributes), but at a Masters level it's deeply disconcerting. I mean these folks are going to be the future generation of poets, the pioneers. C'mon man.

Anyways, I think @Shen made a good point that this kind of thing is entirely situational. However, I must admit, when feedback is asked for - just like in my class work - you'd expect something well... more, to put it nicely.

This also reminds me of a quote, and I can't remember from who at the moment, but it goes something like: "Never trust writers to review another writers work." The reasoning being that writers tend to be egotistic and challenging for the sole purpose of competition. Writers don't make very good readers to say the least. At least not in the context of giving critical reviews and what not. I mean the perfect example of this is all the YouTube poetry collection review videos. Almost all of them are negative - sometimes for good reason - and they are just as sensational as mainstream media these days.

However, I think the caveat here is whether or not the other writer you entrust your work to is faithful enough to the craft and understands your style of writing; like a close writer friend. In which case, I think the quote I mentioned isn't nearly as important.

I couldn't agree any more strongly with what you've said, Marc. Sometimes it is better to leave things left unsaid than to force a comment that doesn't feel or sound right. Also, I know that everyone else has mentioned something about the commenting in the form of feedback/critique, and yes I agree that if it is asked for than the author should expect a mixed bag of responses. However, I do still believe that candor and respect are vital in these moments as well.

I'm definitely okay with conversational comments. In fact, those are the ones I enjoy the most, provided the commenter doesn't use leading introduction to begin an argument. I've had that happen before too. I just don't enjoy being part of or around drama because my mood is very sensitive to negative energy. But like you, I enjoy when someone can start up an interesting introduction that isn't shouting spam. That is always a welcoming comment to receive on YouTube, or just in general.

On the flip side, I've tried engaging with someone before when they leave a bland comment (I love this! or This is cool!) by asking them what exactly about the content they loved or thought was cool. Most of the time they don't respond back at all (ghosting), or they just respond back with "idk, I just thought it was cool." It is really annoying.

I relied heavily on well-engaged conversational comments on IG when I first started out because I would check out their profile and possibly even give them a follow, but now that IG is swarming with overpopulation problems, gatekeepers, and the algorithms that control viewership is botched, I haven't really put a second glance into going back as of late. Plus nobody seems to want to engage anymore, they just want views, followers, etc. Hence the comments being lame. It is a complex issue for sure.

Also I can definitely see why being overly friendly could come off as disingenuous because the first thought that would run through my mind is: Is this person an excited fan, or do they want something (meaning it is just a lead to ask for something).

Also I'd be okay promoting someone's work, but only if they were a person who engaged with my content frequently. But simply leaving a comment out of the blue asking to be promoted, nah, I'll pass.

And I like we've all received those 'Promote it here: _____' comments. Instantly after posting. Every. Damn. Time.

robots

Exactly like Marc said. There is a lot of robots being employed on social media these days. I'm quite fond of the idea that I've been growing detached from 1s and 0s for a while.

But yes Shen, I've had that happen too many times to count. It gets frustrating. I don't ever delete them though, just block certain phrases so they don't appear anymore. This way I still have the reactions in my analytics.