| World Of Poets.com Review Guide |
Review Guide Reviewing another poet does not have to read like a Harvard dissertation. Nor do you have to be an expert. However, if you want to be FAIR to a poet, at least learning the fundamental elements of reviewing here at World of Poets.com is highly recommended. Not only will poets appreciate the time and effort, you will find that the reviews you receive back will be equally helpful and full of great insight. After all, the purpose of posting and reviewing poetry is not just in the joy of it, it is in the learning of it as well. I hope that this revised Review Guide, which is the backbone of our system here, will be embraced in the spirit of its creation: to allow poets OF ALL ABILITIES, to contribute their insights as a reader for the betterment of our collective membership. Remember, there are 4 areas of review, and within EACH AREA, you will give a score based on 1 being poor, and 5 being SUPERIOR. You are rating the POEM, not the POET! Try to keep your commentary specific to the four areas of concern. 1) FORM: If a poet is using a specific form, how well do they adhere to the requirements of that form? Form can also be applied to a free verse poem, one with no definite rhyme scheme or form. That is because Form also asks you to review how well the poet conveys their thoughts. Does the use of punctuation make sense? Is the poem riddled with spelling errors, etc? Regardless of free verse or strict form, is the piece actually a poem, or more like thoughts broken up on the page? 2) RHYTHM & METER: Simply put: How does the poem “sound” to you? Read it out loud. Does the poem make you stumble, because of where the poet breaks the lines? Or does it flow from start to finish? How well does the poet use a rhyme scheme in a poem which contains one? Does the rhyme scheme make sense to you? How good is the poems tempo? Counting the number of syllables in each line should give you an idea of whether there is a solid pattern. 3) TONE: The tone of a poem is roughly equivalent to the mood it creates in the reader. How well does the poet affect you? The tone may be based on a number of other conventions that the poem uses, such as meter or repetition. If you find a poem exhilarating, maybe it's because the meter mimics galloping. If you find a poem depressing, that may be because it contains shadowy imagery. Tone is not in any way divorced from the other elements of poetry; it is directly dependent on them. Judge whether or not the poets characters, images, thoughts, ideas, and how well he or she presented them to you in the poem. 4) FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: For those who are familiar with the many terms, how well does the poet incorporate Metaphor, Imagery, Symbolism, Alliteration, Hyperbole, etc into the poem? Basically, you want to consider the quality of the LANGUAGE in the piece. How well does the poet paint a picture in your mind? How creative is the subject and how it is conveyed to you? Is the poem original and full of wonderful language, or does it contain simple language without much flair? THE RATING SCALE IS 1-5. READ BELOW FOR DETAILS: 1 POOR: The poem did not exhibit any notable qualities. 2 FAIR: I could see some vague effort in this area. 3 GOOD: With a solid revision, this shows great promise. 4 VERY GOOD: The poem exhibited very good qualities in this area. 5 SUPERIOR: The poem conveyed this area perfectly. A NOTE ABOUT THE COMMENT AREA: Try to be specific about what you liked and disliked. Try to use the actual terms of the 4 categories in your review. Saying “I really liked your poem” really says nothing at all. However, saying “I liked how you made every other word rhyme, it really worked for me, ” is specific. You do not need to write a novel to write a good review. I constantly see commentary filled with “I felt that way once…” “I had this experience before”, etc. I would like to see the comment area specifically address the poem itself. We have a mail system and a bulletin board and a chat room reserved for sharing experiences. Try to pack a punch in your commentary. If you can’t find ANYTHING good to say about the poem at all, then why not just pass it up and move to another one? I am not saying ignore the opportunity to help a poet, but if it is truly that bad, there is no need to review it. Also, if you do give someone poors or fairs…be kind and gently be specific about what they can do to improve it. If you point out the specific areas, always being mindful to find SOMETHING of value in the piece, it is up to the member to realize it is not a personal attack and to respond using the Review Response Guidelines if they disagree. Practice these tips to write winning reviews: Reviewing is a writing exercise. Creating detailed feedback for a fellow writer is one of the best tools available for improving your own writing. That said, if you're going to spend the time to do it, helping the author is important. There is a better chance for the ideas in a review to get through to an author if they are well presented. 1. Reviews should be honest. Helping writers improve their craft is the mission of worldofpoets.com. Honest opinions are what help writers improve. Giving false feedback doesn't help anyone and can lead an author down a long road to bitter disappointment. 2. Reviews should be encouraging. Everyone at every level should be encouraged to continue writing! Encouraging reviews are more likely to be used by an author which means the time creating the review was well spent. Whether the author decides to use the reviewer's honest suggestions or not, the review should be motivating and encourage the author to keep writing. 3. Reviews should be respectful. Regardless of an author's level of skill or talent, a reviewer should always respect that the author is an individual person. A reviewer flaunting that they are better than the author they're reviewing is not respectful and is counter productive. 4. Reviews should be well rounded. While honesty is very important, a review that points out only flaws without any mention of an item's positive points is not nearly as helpful to an author as a well rounded review with both positive and negative remarks. Don't forget, the same goes for reviews that only point out positives! Even the greatest pieces of writing have room for suggestions and opinions. 5. Reviews should contain your opinion While grammatical, typographical and other errors can be included within a review, don't forget to tell the author how the piece made you feel. Give them your thoughts about the inside of their writing, not just the outside. 6. Develop your own review format Determine what aspects of writings you like to focus on most, create a short outline to follow and start reviewing. Following this process will help keep your reviews honest and consistent. As your experience grows, you’ll find ways to improve your format and your skills. 7. After you review a poem, read what others said Once you complete your review and submit it, you will notice that you can now view what others have had to say about the same poem. Compare your comments to others. Try to emulate poets whom you think gave reviews that you would like to receive. It will be obvious to you reviews that are simply “bloated” with meaningless fodder. 8. Ask your Regional Rep for help Regional Reps are site administrators. They know and practice the policies and ideals of the World Of Poets. Asking them for guidance, or meeting them in the chat area for a little extra help, will go a long way in gaining the respect and admiration from the poets you review. Not only that, you will gain confidence as a reviewer, which in turn will definitely have a positive effect on your own poetry! 9. Respond to your own reviews honestly So often I see this happen: a new member will come onboard, get a few SUPERIORS, respond with all SUPERIOR responses, and they are off and running into the perfection domain! This is NOT the way we want poetry to be shared. If you receive a review that does not adhere to the guidelines as you have read them, you have to reflect that in your Review Response back to the member. If you reply with an empty SUPERIOR response, you can expect to get reviews that have nothing to do with the actual quality of your poetry, and more to do with satisfying someone’s ego. 10. When in doubt, don’t review That’s right. There are times when I got the impression that the reviewer was simply going to submit a review because they read my poem. If you read a poem that you either don’t understand, don’t agree with, gets you angry, does not allow you to utilize the Guide for its intended purpose, then move on. Go review a poem with a clear head. I hope that you have found this revision to be helpful. I hope that you will all use it responsibly and try to keep in mind that not everyone writes like you, and not everyone will be able to review like you. That is why the WORLD is such a cool place to be. PLEASE BE SURE TO MESSAGE YOUR REGIONAL REP IF YOU FEEL THAT A MEMBER IS NOT USING THE REVIEW SYSTEM APPROPRIATELY. DO NOT RESPOND ANGRILY IN A REVIEW RESPONSE. WE WILL HANDLE IT! GOLDEN RULE OF REVIEWING: RETURN YOUR REVIEWS ONE FOR ONE! |