Late last night I posted a pre-critique version of a poem and promised I would post the post-critique version today. The time has come.

Before I post the revised poem, I’d like to make a few observations.

1. A poem is never really complete. Just because it has been workshopped or critiqued and revised doesn’t mean it is finished. But at some point, for the poet’s own sanity, it’s best to lay the poem to rest.
2. During critique, different people will see different things in a poem and not everyone will focus on the same thing. I’ve learned that some people are very adept at discerning metrical patterns while others are better at slicing the nuances of word choice or diction. Others may be better at fixing punctuation. And some poets are just capable enough at making less keen observations, but which are very helpful in the process as well. There is no level of experience in critique groups more important than others as every reader will notice different things and make comments based on experience, background, education, etc. It is up to the poet or the person presenting the poem for critique to determine what comments are most helpful and which ones are not and decide for him or herself what should be changed based on what they value the most and the intent of writing the poem.
3. One of the most important aspects of critiquing a poem is to try to ascertain a poem’s theme or its author’s intent in writing it. If you don’t understand the message a poem is trying to convey then it’s either because the poet didn’t do a good job at presenting the message and therefore that needs to be brought up in the critique or it is because you perhaps do not have the proper experience in addressing what the poem needs. For instance, a member of last night’s critique group brought a poem based on a particular view he had while vacationing at the Alpines. Since I had never been to the Alpines, it was difficult for me to critique parts of the poem because I couldn’t see the same scene that he saw. But I could see the scene that he described in the poem; what was difficult was knowing whether that scene testified to the actual scene he wanted to write about. In that kind of a situation it is best to simply tell the author of the poem what it is his poem makes you feel, think, or what you see through the imagery he presents.
4. Finally, it is not necessarily important to understand every element in a poem during critique. I have always thought it was not necessary to defend or explain a poem to members of a critique group because I wanted to see if they could catch all the nuances I intended on their own. If they could then I knew I was effective in presenting them. If they couldn’t then it meant I had some work to do. If a certain critique said something odd that I thought was off base then I’d simply discard it. For instance, I received one critique that mentioned a particular word choice as too “antiquated,” which was intentional and therefore it didn’t matter to me that the person didn’t like that word. I just figured she didn’t pick up on the point that I was trying to present a poem that contained a message that is relevant for all time so the archaic expression was intended to do that. If other people respond favorably and seem to get the message, as was this case, then you know it isn’t your poem or the way you expressed it. That happens. What you want to look out for are those expressions that no one gets.

The following revision is my current draft of the poem that I had critiqued last night. My changes are based on the comments that I received about the poem, both verbally and in writing, and reflect a group consensus regarding changes that would be improvements to the poem as I intended to write it. Notice that the changes, nor the critiques, were meant to make the poem a different one; the idea is to improve on the original intent. I believe these changes do that, but I’d like to hear feedback and see if you think the same thing.

The Armor Dims

Chivalry fights to the last breath,
gasps on Chivas to bury
ripost upon ripost, cries
like widows restrained by
their own sad impulse.

Death dawns,
dearth and drawn
in upon itself, the poor
still swill of liquor in the mouth
as it kills the miming will.
And the prenatal murders,
the blast of powder and keg
while young boys scream out
to the loves who will never know
them. The men whose bondage
descends from the stairwell
of civilization feast
upon the scraps
of their own brown
brothers; electric chairs,
ropes burned crisp with fresh
flesh, inner cities full
of needles
and fields of fire.

We’ve searched hard
for the tarnish of blade
or blood steeped in stool,
aiming to save one man
from the loss of another
trembling strain.
But in vain.

We’ve wrapped ourselves tight
in fear and doubt,
dying to climb out, spread
our weakening wings like a
blazing banner in harrowing heat.

Then –
I know, in the cusp of my grave
need, no knight stands without sacrifice.
This is the culture of death.

Some final notes:

While revising this poem it became apparent to me that I was going to have to make further changes, beyond those that were suggested by my critique group, in order to achieve the results of the critique. This was most evident in certain line breaks. For me, line breaks are very important. Which word ends a particular line is determined by two things:

1. Visual effects on the page
2. The sound of the word as the poem is read aloud

A poem is, above all things, a sensual experience. If it is read silently then the sensory experience is visual. If it is read aloud then the sensory experience is auditory. In addition to either of these, it is also always kinesthetic. A poem must make a person feel. And I want each line to contribute to the whole of the experience – visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. These things are not always talked about in these terms in a critique group, but these are always on my mind when I write and rewrite.

A critical point to this poem is its speaker. My critique group seized upon that right away. And they were able to fix the major difficulty I had, and didn’t know I had it, with one simple suggestion. The suggestion was to take “I” out of it – at least at the beginning of the poem – and to personify Chivalry. It was a great suggestion and I liked it. We later decided to bring “I” in later in the poem and then that led to the discussion of the plural first person, “We.” We decided to move from the third-person personified to the first person plural to the first person singular as a progression within the poem. I loved the suggestion. Even though the change of POV is not something you would want to do in most poems, it worked for this poem and was just what the poem needed in order to achieve the effect that I was going for. Other suggestions seemed to compliment that one.

Now it’s your turn. What do you think of the revised version of this poem (Did you notice the title changed?)? Which version do you like better – the pre-critique version or the post-critique version? And is there anything else we can do to improve it?