I have to say that I find this at once interesting and then ultimately 
nonsense or to be less harsh parodoxical. If you write for yourself (or 
don't write at all but recite and then throw the result into the bin 
although how that happens is unclear to me) how is it there is an enormously 
copious blog consisting of your 'poetry' to which you have issued a 
universal invitation to this list to come and read.
I have accused better poets than yourselves but who take the same attitude 
of 'it is my words and I shall not alter one thing, not one thing, not one 
thing, nothing, so there and there and there' (or some such repititious 
silliness) ' accused them, I say, of intellectual arrogance and I think in 
the same way you are consumed by your own ideas that you will acept no 
dissention at all. You seem to be on some intellectual binge and ego 
preening exercise of indulgence.
Now do not get me wrong here I invite criticism of anything I write and 
welcome, with gratitude, the time others have taken to read and comment but 
at the end I am the owner of the poem and I alone know what fathered the 
thoughts that were developed in the poem so I feel free to accept or refuse 
the advice as I the poet judge best for the poem but I also know that I am a 
better poet for having listened and learned from others.
    I am afraid I cannot subscribe to the idea that a poem is of the moment 
and then bin it ( much as some of my verse may deserve such an approach).
However I know that I am wasting my time making these points because clearly 
you have no intention of adjusting your stance although there is some 
curiosity that has led me to wonder how you came to such conclusions about 
the nature and purpose of poetry. Arthur
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "biloxi andersen" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 5:15 PM
Subject: Please excuse me from "critique" duties


> 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.
>
>