To be honest, I don't believe in "critique", at all, and I'd rather
not do any, as I explained to Andrew in an email between us. I think
it's pointless. I never seek it. I felt pressured into making a
critique last night as someone on this list said I'm expected to
"contribute" and shouldn't expect a "free ride"; meaning, explicitly
as he put it, that I should "critique" the work of others. That was in
reply to a post I had made about some little pieces I added to the
book, more like a news post, and I wasn't expecting a critique for
them. This misunderstanding might've been my fault though, as I'd put
a sentence on the site where the book is hosted implying a request for
critique in imitation of someone's else. That's it; monkey see
monkey do as I'd never shared my stuff before. I removed it today. I
don't think I would've altered any of my pieces based on what someone
else would've told me, in fact, I'm almost a 100% sure of this.

See, for a long period of time this had been my attitude about verse

Don't you please them
Nor appease them
Your words are yours alone
For no one else to hear
If anyone else would hear them
If anyone else it would be
Corruption of the mind
The corruption of the mind
The corruption of the mind
The corruption of the mind

And still is. There's nothing that I regard more pointless than
thinking "I wonder what someone else would think of this piece? Would
a reader like it? I wonder what an editor would think of it? would it
be accepted? is it good enough?" et cetera. I think that's evil. I
never sought to let an editor be a judge of something that I wrote and
never, never will. I don't write for others and I would advise others
to only write for themselves. I don't think anyone is in a position to
"critique" my stuff, just like I'm not in a position to critique
theirs. I think, as far as verse is concerned, that we learn best, if
not only, through practice, inventing our tools as we need them, and
if we're to learn from others or have anything to teach to others, I
think it's best through example; reading their stuff, or offering our
stuff to them to read. Even then, we forget what we're taught. In
fact, so much so, that I don't really try to learn from others. I
think it's best to be original.


That piece we recorded for Andrew after his was done in mere minutes,
perhaps a handful; from reading his piece, getting the gist of it, to
us recording ours. We did it in one go, recited once or twice at most,
not written or edited, without looking at his piece again after we
first read it to get the idea of what it's about, and then recorded.
Used the fingers of one hand to count the words and told it as they
came out keeping to the finger count. See, critique is much about
editing; we don't really edit, in fact, we don't even write. We just
recite stuff. The best critique I could give to someone regarding a
piece of his to tell him to throw it in the bin, because, that's what
we'd do, so much so that we don't even bother writing, let alone edit.

That's really the only "critique" I could give to someone. Just throw
it in the bin. That's what we do. Whether it's good or bad, just
through it in the bin. We only write something down to document it,
when we'd moved on from it and it might be forgotten, but never when
we're not sure about it. We make perhaps 6-7 pieces a day, so after a
little while, months, we could have hundreds, too much of life to
remember. We don't care for remembering the pieces themselves, we tell
them anew each time, it's just that we forget the situations
themselves that brought them up, and that's why we write them down.

Of course, there are issues of craft, which I can articulate well, for
example, how to begin a piece, how to end it, but, again, I think it's
best if people find them out for themselves, or invent theirs
according to their needs.