Peer Critique: Imitative Poems Critiquer's name _________________ Poet's name _________________ Instructions to the critiquer: please respond honestly and tactfully to the questions below. Balance compliments with suggestions for improvement, and feel free to ask the writer helpful and provocative questions. 1) Review the assignment thoroughly, then read over your classmate's poem a couple times. Ask the poet any relevant and meaningful question: 2) Mention something which you feel is especially imaginative, accurate, engaging or otherwise good in the poem. 3) What and/or whom is the poem imitating? This should be quite specific. If you can't tell, let the writer know. 4) What elements or facets of the original are being imitated? Diction? Subject matter? Form? Tone of voice? Theme? Style? General world view? Quality of feeling? Is the poem appropriate for the period it is imitating? Are there any elements conspicuously not of the period currently being studied? 5) How accurate is the imitation? What works and what doesn't work? There should be clear similarities to what is being imitated. (The exact kind of similarities can vary quite a lot, but they should be readily discernable.) 6) What about this imitation helps you to see or understand the original better or in a new way? 7) How would you describe the poem's form? Is it written in a traditional metrical or stanzaic pattern of some kind, or is it more like open verse? What principles and patterns guide the line and stanza breaks? 8) A common shortcoming of student poems is vague, overgeneral language, or lack of specific, real, concrete detail. Does the draft you are examining have plenty of vivid, specific information? Where and/or how might it be better developed?
9 )Has the writer included an "Author's Note" as assigned? If so, how might it be improved? 10) What would you mainly suggest to the writer to make this piece better accomplish the assignment's aims? 11) Any suggestions for improving the piece as poetry (and not just as an imitation)? Is it moving, challenging, or otherwise engaging? Is the language interesting and do the sounds and rhythms of the poem work? Has the poet effectively avoided distracting mechanical errors, clichés, poeticising, weak pacing, platitudes, dull language, form out of whack with content, etc.? (unless, of course, the writer is attempting to satirize or parody those qualities!). 12) Any other suggestions or comments? Thank you! |