The Cocky Crash
Not too long ago, I submitted one of my most recent (and probably best) poems for critique by some fellow authors.
I
had already received a lot of positive feedback on the piece, so I hoped that
would remain the case before I made the poem public. Only two people commented
on the poem. One was a friend who told me everything I wanted to hear: it almost made her tear up, she was speechless, I
had captured the emotions well, etc. I felt pretty good.
The
second comment was from someone I don’t know. She started with, “I think you’ve
got a great start…” and that kind of thing makes me think, “Uh oh. What’s wrong
with it?”
The
young woman told me the “experience wasn’t immediate enough.” It was “too far”
to make her feel any emotion, the feelings were “abstract” and disconnected
from anything real. In one of the lines, I threw a pretty “tell-y” sentence in
there, and she said it felt like “a cop out.” She said I should consider giving
more imagery for the reader to work with. Lastly, she told me that the line that
happened to be my favorite “didn’t work” for her and seemed “a bit dramatic.”
Ow.
I
generally take pride in saying that you can critique my work however hard and
it won’t hurt me. When I first started receiving critiques, it was true
of me. I could laugh
at my work, and I loved getting
the feedback. But lately, I’ve noticed a defensive tendency in me, and
I noticed it again when I receive that critique. I felt touchy, sensitive, and
a little bit hurt. Everyone else thought the poem was great, so why didn’t she?
Lately,
my friends and family have been the only ones reading my work. Don’t get me
wrong—I love them all—but those categories of people tend to give different kinds
of feedback than strangers or
even acquaintances. Even though they may be honest, the critiques still tend to
be the feel-good, positive ones that everyone likes to hear. They think my work is great.
Maybe it’s not all that
wonderful.
It’s
been so long since I’ve received any constructive criticism, that I’ve begun to
get cocky. I’ve begun to take more pride in my work than it warrants.
I
can look at that constructive critique that I received on my poem and see that it isn’t that
harsh. The lady inserted some positive comments amid the more
practical ones. She
gave me what I had asked for: feedback. And to be honest, I had
wondered if that one tell-y line was a cop out. She picked up on it and told
me, yes it was. I should have just listened to my gut when I wrote it in the
first place. She told me to give more visuals which requires that I quit being
lazy.
I
wanted my poem to be well-written, but when she told me the things she did, I
felt like my poem wasn’t good. In my head, I knew that her critique would help
me make it better, but I didn’t want to do the work that it would take to get there.
I
don’t usually revise poems, so when I submitted the poem and asked for
feedback, I
wasn’t truly looking for critiques. I was looking for more praise.
I
think I needed a bit of a sock in the face. It wasn’t a harsh critique, but it
brought some of my cockiness down in a crash. I felt hurt at first, but after a
few days, I was able to take another look at my poem and make some changes.
It’s
time for me to get back into receiving some constructive criticism. It’s time for me to stop being so smug about my work. It’s time for me to be prepared to
take critiques with the willingness to laugh and eagerness to listen and revise.
And
thanks to that young woman, hopefully my poem is now that much better.
…
Is it time for you to find
constructive criticism? How will your willingness to listen improve your work?
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