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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 another 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's; 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.