Poetry: Handling Criticism, Feedback & Alternative Interpretations Of Your Work

1. Introduction: Hello, and welcome to the course, handling critique feedback, and alternative interpretations of your poetry. My name is Zachary Phillips. I am a poet, a writer, and author, and instructor. In these roles, I've helped thousands of people move from a place of surviving to passionately thriving, and one of those places is specifically to do with their poetry. I'm going to be drawing information from my two books, how to write evocative poetry and poetry from the Dark Knight of the Soul, to help you to best process and handle putting your poetry out. To be looking at this approach from multiple different perspectives for the personal poet, the one that's write for themselves, the relationship poet, the one that writes for a one personal for a certain point, and the professional poet, the one that is looking to publish and earn a living off their poetry. All of these three groups of people face interconnected related, but also specific problems in relation to feedback and interpretations and all that stuff in relation to their work. I'm going to share with you a couple of my poems that have taken off and received positive praise, but also some harsh criticism. I'm going to share with you that criticism, share those poetries with you and also share with you my reasoning as to why I chose to respond the way I did and how I can get to the mental state of being able to respond and continue to produce poetry that cells, that resonates, that moves people, and that is meaningful to write. With all of that said without further ado, let's dive into the first session and yeah. Let's get 2. Advice For 'Personal' Poets: I said in the introduction, there are three types of people, three types of poets that we're going to be looking at. A lot of the advice is for all of you for everyone, but there are some specific nuances to each view. The first one going to look at is the personal poet. This is the person who writes poetry for themselves, as an active expression, as an act of healing, as an act of personal growth, as a form of journaling. Now, if you were in this group and you've clicked on the course and you're like, Well, how do I handle critique feedback, alternative interpretations? My suggestion would be why are you sharing it? If you are sharing your poetry, it's because you're looking for some external validation for it. Now that moves you into the relationship perspective. If you've written stuff as a personal perspective and you're looking to publish it or put it out there, you're moving to the professional. A lot of this will be for you. But if you are purely a personal writer and just writing for yourself and you're bothered by the feedback, ask yourself, why am I sharing this? What do I get from sharing it? Is this an ego boost? Do I need some compliments, some criticisms? Is it something in me that I'm looking for? Or am I just sharing it out of a win? Maybe you stop sharing. That's an okay response. You don't have to share anything you do with anyone. If you're writing for yourself and you're finding that you're sharing it and people start to critique it, you can't handle that, stop sharing it. Now, that's one response. The second response is this, you may be writing something for you as an expression of your soul in this moment. Then you personally look back over it and you start judging your own work and you start finding flaws in it. That's okay. You recognize the fact that you wrote that poem as an expression of who and what you were in that time and the person reading it is a different version of you. It's a person that was came about because of the writing of the poem. You didn't write the poem for that person, you wrote the poem for the person in the moment. Yeah, so don't judge yourself too harshly based on your previous work. And that applies to all of us. Don't judge yourself harshly based on the previous work that you've done. Every word that you write improves your ability to write the next word, so just keep writing. And that's a bit of general advice for all of us. K that if you critique one of my poems, I'm going to share some with you throughout this course, but you could critique it. That's fine. That was past me. The moment it was written, I am a new person because of the fact that I wrote that poem. Does that make sense? 3. Advice for 'Relational' Poets: Move ourself into the relationship based poets. These are people who are writing for a particular person or a particular event. They're not just doing it for themselves, but there's a reason behind it and they're wanting to share some of their work. They might be moving to the professional stage or wanting to get their poetry out there to the masses in some sense, or it might just be that they're wanting to write the cliche love poem for their partner. This is an interesting space because if you've got a particular person in mind and they're not receiving it the way you want to receive it, that can really cut. But this is an important thing for you all, no matter where you're at to realize is when you put your poetry out there, when you put art out there, any creative expression out there. That's an expression of you in this moment, but you're putting it out there as a gift to the world and you're allowing people to observe it and tweak it and change it and interpret it based on their own perspectives. How you choose to interpret a world, a word, a moment, an event, a feeling, will be different based on everything that you've experienced in your life. The education you have, the upbringing you have, the genetics you have, the religion you have, the race, the gender, the age that you have, all of these things dictate your unique world view. Think about the language. I'm speaking in English right now and we have a very strong subject object way that we express ourselves. If your language doesn't have a very clear subject object, the way that you express yourself in the poetry will be different. The very nature of the words and the language that we choose to express ourselves will dictate some of the way that things are interpreted. The reason saying all of this is to highlight to you that all you do when you are putting poetry or art out there is saying here is this gift to the world. Here is the work that I'm doing, and you have to just be aware that people will interpret it differently based on their perspectives. Now, this isn't to say that you don't want to do your best work and you don't want to improve yourself and write the best love poem, the best response to anger, the most applicable words possible. That's more of a craft perspective. I've got courses up on skill share where I can talk to you about the nitty gritty of how to choose the best words and the best flow and the best rhymes and all of those things. Let's assume you've done that. You've put your best self out, and someone interpreted it incorrectly. They gave you some criticism. The feedback was this fell short, or they just didn't respond in a way. What do you do? You take a breath. And you realize that that's their response to art, and it's okay. From a creative technical perspective. We'll talk about how to handle critiques and criticisms in the best way to grow you as a writer. But from an ego perspective, you need to detach yourself from your work. You created it and you let it go into the universe and people choosing to accept it and take it up. The reason this is important is because if you show the poem to two people, they will have different responses to it. Perfect is impossible, but you might write something perfectly for one person. The second person has different experiences, different upbringings, differ everything. They will interpret it differently. You can't hit perfect on multiple people. Now, holding that in mind, if you wrote for a particular person and they didn't appreciate it the way that you wanted to. You take a pause, you feel those feelings, you let them sit, you acknowledge them. You put them aside and you just have a conversation like, hey, How did what fell short here, what changed? Also be aware as you're having that conversation, as you're holding that space, know that you're going to be hypocritical of yourself. The creative process draws out of you and it's like, this is this thing, this moment, this is wonder, this glory, and you're feeling this attachment to it. But the receiver may not be, and they might not be in the mood or the zone or the mental state to receive it. There are multiple factors that are far beyond your control that dictate if someone is going to receive the work in the same light that you do? Hold all of that and then you can start to let go of some of the hurt that comes. 4. Advice for 'Professional' Poets: The professional writer faces a slightly different challenge. If you're someone like me and you put your poetry out there and sell it, then you are particularly the more you get into it. You reliant on sales. This course isn't a course on how to sell. But if you're not doing the promotion, the branding, the marketing, the connection, the relationships, the cover design, all of the other things that are involved in selling, and you're looking at feedback and the feedback I'm getting is just subpar sub optimal. I'm not selling people I'm engaging. If you're not doing all of those other things, in addition to having awesome words, then you're going to fall short. If you're not doing all of that, you may be looking in the wrong places. If you're judging yourself, if you're judging your worth, if you're judging the quality of the poem, if you're thinking you're getting bad feedback because you aren't getting those sales, it's not necessarily a factor of the words. You might be the best poet ever, but you're just not able to promote yourself. Does that make sense? Consider that. The second thing I would like you to consider is the concept of the different parts of you. This is quite an important concept, and I think that for all writers are all creative, you need to split yourself into three parts of you. Write you, editor, and entrepreneur. The writer you writes, The writer you gets into the zone, channels the use, taps into creativity, whatever you call it, whatever your process is, and just expresses. There's no regard for the audience, there's no regard for anything else. There's just this creative expression. That person's job, that part of you job is to just get the words out. Yeah. Then at a later stage, the editor you comes around. This is almost like it's a different person. This person didn't write the words, but it's their job to tweak to refine, to get it into a way that is applicable to a more complete product. Now, if you're a personal relationship writer, you may not engage these other parts as much. You still probably should edit your work a little bit. You might be split between the two, but You definitely should do your editing separate to your writing, at least starting out. Writer you writes, edit to U edits. This person chops off some words. This person looks at the flow. This person considers it from a detached perspective. You might be able to edit your work the moment you've written, you might be able to edit it a week or you might need a month later to really detach you from that piece. It's not you that wrote it. It's a different part of you, and that gives you the ability to step back. Now, what this does, and particularly when you add the entrepreneur you into it, is it gives you a detached perspective. It's not you that wrote the product, it's the process of you that wrote the poem. Does that make sense? Once you've done that, and this is for the professionals, the entree you comes along and markets the poem and shares it and expresses it and does all of that business stuff to bring it to market, so to speak. You need all of those things to even give the poem to the world. Yeah, and then the feedback comes in and people will interpret it differently. I want to phrase this whole encapsulate this whole problem because there will be different parts of you or different reasons that we're writing, the personal, the relationship, and the professional writer, and there was different parts of you doing the writing, the writer you, the editing you, and the entrepreneur you. All of those parts need to work together. And if you can work together and not sort of associate too strongly with the work once it's done, little bit of attachment, little step back. When the feedback comes in, you won't take it as personally. So in the next video, we're going to talk about a poem of mind and discuss the specific feedback issues that it faced. 5. Handling Feedback & Criticism: To put this into perspective, I'm going to share with you now a poem of mine called Do you Love me or just the idea of M. Then I will share with you some of the feedback I've gotten for that poem on the same day and contrast the two to highlight the difference between my understanding, my interpretation, my intent versus the reader's intent. Does that make session? Now, you can click in the show notes and grab yourself a PDF of this to read along. But the poem goes as such. Do you love me or just the idea of me? I may be your dream girl. But I am real and that reality is different from your fantasy. How often must we fight, just to clarify that you expected me to act differently, to speak differently. How many tears must fall, just to realize that you expected me to be something I'm not. If you love me, please drop your expectations of me and open your eyes to the real me. My body has blemishes. I will lose my temper. I judge unfairly. I get things wrong. I'm not perfect. No one is, unless of course, they are just a dream. Now, you're free to interpret that poem however you like. But I put it out there and on the same day, different mediums of responding to the poem, but I received these feedbacks almost instantly. The feedback, the first one was this. I feel like I've gained a deeper understanding of the complexities of love and relationships. The author's insights into the importance of being honest with ourselves and our partners and the need for genuine connection in our relationships are both valuable and thought provoking. This poem has given me a lot to think about and inspired me to examine my own motivations and desires when it comes to love. I would highly recommend this poem to anyone who's seeking to build stronger and more authentic relationships. Boom, I feel great, amazing, validated, right. Check across to a different area, and this is the feedback I get. Sucks to be her then, Lol. Every woman is an empress inside. Your subject is quite pitiful, not a good look at all. There you have it. Same poem, same day, different people responding differently. Your response to the poem will be unique to you and I invite you to share it, of course. But here's the butt. I put that piece out. I wrote it as an expression, and we're going to talk a little bit later about the alternative interpretations of the poetry with a different poem. But the point is, I had an idea in my mind of what I was trying to project. I was responding to an instance in my past where a partner of mine said to me, Do you love me or just the idea of me. I was expressing that and having the maturity in my mind to process and go through what I couldn't at the time. It was the adult me helping the teenage me process a little bit more and come to terms with the reality of the situation. I was unfairly judging. I was doing all of those things. Now the reason I'm sharing this with you isn't to go into the depth of my back end reasoning of my poem, but to share with you the feedback that I got. Now, I got more than that feedback, but how do I handle this? How do I deal with the first praise and handle the critique of the second praise? Well, thankfully, they both came at once. So there's a bit of balance, but there's a phrase that really I try to resonate with that I try to sit with whenever I put my poetry out there, whether it either be professionally or relationship wise. It goes like this. You are not as good or as bad as they say you are? You are not as good or as bad as they say you are. This is an important thing to hold on to. People can praise me to no ends, and if I agree with their praise, what happens? Then I stop writing, I stop going deep, I stop trying to push the envelope. Because I'm there, I've made it. What happens to artists and creatives and musicians and actors and all of these people who just coast. Inevitably, they drop off. What happens to those that keep pushing the ver, keep trying. They keep growing, they keep evolving and their art stays pure and resonant and it expanding. That's what I want to be. I don't want to accept the positive feedback as the epitome. It's not me. It's just that poem. In fact, it's just that person responding to that poem in that moment. Similarly, with the negative feedback. Yeah. Maybe my poem hit a nerve. Maybe that person had been treated in the way that they received that poem and go, I've been treated like that. Sucks to be that girl. I used to be that girl, and you're a bad person for writing like that. Maybe I can't dictate who's going to read the work and I can't dictate how they're going to respond to it. But I know that they're responding to the work to the poem, not to me. There's a distinction we're trying to make from here. I am not that poem. I'm not that poem. I am the person who wrote that poem in that moment. I'm not even that person anymore. I am me now that has evolved and changed and grown as a writer and a person because of writing that poem. That feedback that came in. We talked about it in earlier video, that the person receiving that feedback is edit to me is in a sense entrepreneur me, and they'll both respond differently. It is not right to me. We just ignores that. R of me just keeps going and doesn't listen to the feedback. This is a trained skill. I didn't have it always and when I first put myself out there, any little negative feedback would crush me. But there's a little bit of an anecdote. Studies have shown that if you are, for example, to be given $100 or find $100 on the ground, that'll move the needle. You'll feel great for a little bit of time. But if you lose $100 or someone takes $100 from you, that will move the needle. Ten to 100 times to 1,000 times more. It will significantly impact you and statistically significantly everyone, f f. Same dollar amount going up or down, but we handle loss AKA critique, far worse. That's an objective fact, but if we apply it to our writing, we know that, I need to up the feelings when someone says something good and dampen the feelings a little bit when someone says something bad. I want to be in that middle road. We come back to that statement. I'm not as good or as bad as people say. 6. Your Art As A Mirror: I really want to just drill down on the idea that art is a mirror. You are creating something that shows people an aspect of themselves. The goal of good art is to move people to make them feel something. You're saying, Hey, think of this thing and it changes their mood. Now we want to change their mood in every way but towards bortom. If you write a thriller as an author, you want to freak them out, scare them, make them intrigue. If you write a romance, you want to trigger those feelings. No matter what of creation you are doing, you want to move the reader towards something that changes them towards or towards feeling,wards passion, towards fear, towards hatred towards love. That's the whole point. The reason I'm saying this is, if you in your work inspire someone to write a negative comment, AKA, you've got a hada, you've inspired them in a way to Well, engage. Now, it might be engagement in the way you want, but you've made them care. Now this is a strategy that people use as a promotional strategy to write on topics, write about topics, right in a way that causes controversy. You're putting people into two camps, you love it or you hate it. This isn't pure creativity, but maybe the entrepreneur part of you goes, Okay, if I stoke a little bit of controversy, if I attack, if I address, if I handle some certain themes, that's going to cause people to respond in a way that is passionate. That actually helps you. It helps you whether they care positively or care negatively enough to comment enough to engage enough to offer that feedback because they care. The worst kind of feedback, the worst interaction you can get is a lack of. I boredom, is disengagement, is clicking away. Yeah. That's even true if you are a relationship based poet. You're writing for a wedding, you're writing for a partner, you're writing for a particular event, you want to make sure that people care and sit and resonate. You want to engage them. You add some humor, add some personality, add some depth. Yeah. If you're writing particularly to sell, particularly to make some money to engage in that sense, you want to hit the emotionality of someone. You want to plant the seed in their soul that goes far out, I care about this positively or negatively. Going down that partisan approach, it's like, I care so much, I need to share this. Oh my God, I care so much. This needs to be. People need to know how insert how bad this person is for having these beliefs. But From my perspective as the poet, I just want the reaction. I want to move you. If in that previous poem or the next one that I'm going to share with you, it makes you feel something, I win. That is the goal. The goal isn't to make you feel a certain way. It isn't to push you down a certain path. It isn't to make you feel something specifically or to make a point. It's to move you as a reader. Now, we'll get into alternate interpretations of your work with this next part. 7. Poem Example 'Burn These Pages': Next poem we're going to look at is called Burn these pages. In a moment, I'm going to play a video for you that will engage you and show you that poem. But once again, you can click the PDF and read along if you like as well. Enjoy the poem, and then we'll talk about the different interpretations of the poem. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but destruction is the soul of poetry. Observe. In your hands, you hold Nature's Majesty reduced to mere sheets of dead wood, marked by the transient thoughts of one blind to the moment, hoping to inspire a fraction of the awe that its life once gave. Burn these pages and feel the flames as they touch your soul deeper than any collection of words ever could. 8. Addressing Alternative Interpretations: Okay, so this pom, burn these pages and this video. The feedback that I got from this poem was all around positive. The direction of the feedback was, wow, amazing job, insightful, this stuff. Thank you so much, but I'm not as good as people say they are. But the point of sharing this poem with you is to talk about alternative interpretations of the poem. Having read or watched that poem, now, you can start to see or have an idea of what I was going for. I ask you, what do you think I'm driving at? What was my author's intent? What was the message that I was trying to project to you? Now you're free to interpret however you like. But I'll tell you what I was thinking versus what people came at me with. What I was thinking and what some people responded to me in that poem was this idea of the poet trying to do what nature can do effortlessly. If you just spend a mindful moment observing nature, you will feel an awe and a wonder and a joy and an elation that goes beyond any words that one person could write. It seems like I wanted to highlight the irony of the fact that we chop that down, put it on the page to just try and make a minute perspective of the thing that a chop down could create. I was hoping for a bit of an irony, a bit of spiritualism, a bit of that ethereal pointing to the moon feelings.'s going to this sage like quality. I'm going to put it into a work that is in that mode. That's the goal that the editor and entrepreneur is looking towards using that piece for. But what feedback did I get? Well, the feedback I got was interesting. Once again, it was all positive, so that's great. But they didn't get it. So people didn't get it. The main way they didn't get it was that it seemed like I was speaking as a environmentalist, that this piece was a protest and it was like, Yeah, we do burn down the forests. You're right, trees make us breathe thing, and there's too much pollution and going to this global warming da da da data. That's the feedback that came back. In my mind, I put something out there that I was hoping to evoke a certain level of thought and I got a different level of thought. What do I do about that? Because that's not the only time that happened. I've released thousands of poems and the feedback that I get when it does come back is wildly varied from what I was going for, and rarely does the emotionality, the feeling, the idea, the point that I'm trying to make return back to me. Two things. Two things. Number one, I realize as a consumer of art, my feelings are mine. And I'm like, that's the author's intent. No, it's not. I can never know the author's intent, just like you can never know my author's intent. Just like in a sense, I can never really know my own intent. I tried to explain to you the reasons, my back end reasonings of that poem to you, and it makes sense in my mind, but trying to articulate it to you. It's still not even fully clear. There was a feeling that I guess if I have meditated on it for hours for days, for whatever, I could come to the term and explain it to you. This is the point of that poem. But I haven't done that. It was an expression of the moment of a collation of things. People observe this collation, observe the poem, and they interpret it their own way. What do I sit with, what do I do? Well, I can do a couple of things. I could choose respond to them and say, Hey, thank you, but this is the point. I choose not to do that because I don't want to take away your experience. If I have a mind blowing awakening, opening, resonant experience with a poem, and I respond to the author and the author responds back to me being like, actually, this is what it's about. Not only does it reduce, diminish or eliminate that feeling. I now have some issues with the artist because the artist is telling me how I should feel. Sorry, buddy, you put your poems out there, then you're letting people take what they want to take from or not even what they want to take from. People will take whatever it comes, whatever arises. I put that poem out there burn these pages, and some people took it as an environmentalist message. Yeah, cool. Some people look at the poems that I put out their different poems and go completely 100% diametrically opposed to the point that I was putting out there. You can see this with mainstream media. People can look at the same product and have wildly different understandings of it. That's the point of art. As the author, as the artist as the poet, your job isn't to dictate down those paths. It isn't to say, Hey, this is the point, not that point. Because the moment you start doing that, you're lowering your art to a lower level and it's derivative. It's saying, Hey, this is the point. You can feel it when an artist does that. You can feel it when people are no longer writing up here, they're writing down here and say, I've got an agenda to project. Now if that's what you want to do, if you want to project an agenda, and people aren't getting that projected agenda appropriately, you're either not marketing the book right to the right people, or you're not doing a good enough job. Either way, there's more resources available that you can learn those two taps. 9. When & How To Receive Feedback: We need to talk now about how to actually receive feedback. When should you take the opinions of people? When should you listen? I'm of the belief that you shouldn't really listen to the feedback and take it on as advice to do something. Haphazardly, you shouldn't take on unsolicited advice as gospel. You should barely give it a grain of salt. If I share with you my poem and you don't like it and you tell me as such, and you tell me I should change it tweak it, do something different or that's not even a poem, that's just whatever. If you're giving me negative feedback or things to even help me, even if it's with good intent, if I didn't ask you for that feedback, if I didn't engage you with it, if I didn't say, Hey, like, can you help me with this, I'm just going to ignore it. I'm going to ignore it because I'm not in the space to receive the feedback from you. If I've had a bad day and you critique me and I take that on, I'm now going to think a lot worse about myself. That can lead to downstream consequences to my writing into my life. It's just not engaging. It's not a good practice. What's more? This is maybe even more important? I don't know who you are. AK, I don't know who the random commenters are. With the first poem that I shared with you, those two people that commented, I have no idea who those people are. They are strangers to me. Are they good writers? Are they bad writers? Do they have any skill at all? Do they have my good intentions at heart or my bad intentions at? I don't know. I didn't engage them. I didn't ask for the feedback. Obviously, you put it out there and people will comment, and you can engage with those comments as a form of promotion. That's a separate task. But in terms of taking it as a feedback in terms of making it change your process or your product, your palms. Let's just put it aside. I'll suggest you ignore that. Do your best to ignore it? Un less little caveat. You're getting the same feedback over and over and over and over and over again. If you're always getting told that something's going on, then you might want to consider might and consider, not definitely and yes, change. Ultimately, you are the artist, and if you've got a style that you know works for you or that he's expressing a truth or just is what's flying, then that is the sacrament. That is the thing that you've got to defend and just put out there. A lot of art, a lot of creativity, a lot of books, a lot of all of this stuff feels like a little sapping plants and it grows and it's delicate. Until it grows into a big tree and can weather the storm of critique and criticism. You've got to defend that thing. You got to build a walled garden around it until it can thrive on its own accord, so protect itself. But who do you take feedback from? Well, I suggest that you find a person or a group of people community. That you trust. You need to trust this person for two things. Number one, if you want legitimate feedback, they're going to say harsh stuff. They could hurt. You need to be open to that person saying stuff that you don't want to hear. I've got a couple of people in my life and different projects change depending on the person. I've got one person that I mainly use, and then I've got a few other people for the different of projects because they've got very specific interests or resonates with them, the stuff that I'm doing. I basically pick these people purposely. What I do once I pick these people purposely, I'm like, Hey, can you give me criticism, feedback, editing, whatever it is, I ask them for the specific thing. Here's a poem. Tell me about it. Now, that burn your pages poetry. I shared that with one of these people. They came back to me and saying, Hey, how you're saying the words in that poem. Sounds a little bit pretentious. It sounds like you're trying too hard. Good to know. Good to know that that's how it's coming across to you. Noted. I've noted that down and in future works where I present my poetry thus, I will tweak and change. Maybe. It's still my choice. But I trust that person for the feedback. I received it. I felt like, that does hurt a little bit. I was trying. I put myself out there. The performance of the poetry is another way that poetry expresses itself. It is still poetry. But other people will say, I think you're trying too hard or that you're not making sense here. I remember giving a completed book to someone and they read through the poems like this is all great except for these three poems. I have no idea what you're talking about. This doesn't land at all. In fact, it's confusing. You've lost me. Cool. Let's talk about it. Let's look into it, why. They gave me that feedback, but I asked specifically for it. The final thing on this is when you're approaching someone, You need to ask them either to critique you or compliment, critique or compliment, because you can't easily have both. If you come to me for advice and say, Hey, can you critique this, I will give you the critical feedback. Can you critique this in a way to make it viable to sell? Sure. One advice. Can you critique this to make it the most evocative poem? S, another feedback. Can you critique this in a way to make it as minimalistic as possible? Cool. These are the different things, or alternatively, can you compliment me on this poem? Great. You did a great job on the poem. Do you see what I'm saying here and I'll tell you why it was good? You've got to work out of feedback you want. Ask for that feedback, be able to receive it and be able to ignore the rest. Yeah. 10. Battling The Bruised Ego Blues: All of this advice aside, there is still going to be an ego cut. No matter how much you block off the outside world, no matter ho much you say, I'm not going to listen to these comments, no matter how much you do any of that. There is still going to be an ego cut that hurts. That's part of it. How do you get good? You will develop a thick skin. Yeah. No matter what you do, there are still going to be times where you read a comment where someone says something, just trying to help and it gets under the skin. You didn't have your defenses up, you didn't ask for it and it just comes. Or someone will say and say, Hey, that poem you did on this topic and they completely don't get it. Okay. You accept it. You take a breath and it makes you stronger. It's like muscles when you're doing exercise, your muscles are growing. That's the pain of growth. It will happen, it will come. You just take that breath, you accept it, and you move on and you write the next work. The only thing that can stop you is yourself if you stop writing. If you let the feedback get, then projects can die. I was writing a book and I was 25,000 words in, and I made a very big mistake of sharing it far too early. I shared it far too early, some feedback came in, and that just crushed the project. It's been five years. I've not looked at it since. Now I've learned. Okay. Let's make sure we allow that seed to grow before we share it with the world. Now I am going to come back to that, but it will be harder to get back into the mode. That's more fiction writing. But the same thing with the poems, if you are not in a place to get the feedback, projects may die. Poems may never be written, never be released. You take that L and know that, you're judging yourself based on the body of work. It's not just this one poem, it's overall poetry that you're writing. If you're the professional poet, it's just one. It's just one poem. It's just one line. It's just one book, one collection. Take it, take a breath, learn about yourself and your own process and your own response to that feedback and move on. Yeah. 11. Class Project: So project time. What we're going to do in the project is this. You're going to share a poem that you've written or that this course has inspired you to write or a part of a poem. Give me something. Share a poem and ask, can you please critique or compliment this work? Critique or compliment. You write the poem, and you say, critique this poem. Or compliment this poem. I will come along and critique or compliment. What this is doing is two things. One, you are getting used to sharing your work, and you are asking for the feedback you want, and I will give it to you. If you want me to critique it, ask me how. Give me specific instructions on how you want that poem critique. If you want compliments, tell me why or which way you want to be complimented on that and I will do it. Then there's one more thing and this is optional, but I really do encourage you to do it is go along and look at the other projects that have been submitted and offer them the same advice. If they asked for critique, critique them. If they ask for compliments, compliment them. Do so with respect, do so with good bedside matter for lack of better expression. When you're receiving this feedback, know that it is given in goodwill. We're not trying to demean anyone. We're not trying to judge, we are trying to help each other improve. We're helping each other improve by asking for the feedback in terms of a compliment or a critique, and we are helping each other by giving it in good faith and receiving it in good faith. It is a bit of a practice. Please do that. Post the poem and ask for the feedback in terms of criticism and compliment, which one you want. You can't have both unfortunately. Then if you can, go into the classroom and look at the projects and ask people to say, Hey, tell people give them the feedback, the criticism, or the compliment thereafter. 12. Recap & Review: Well quick recap and review of the course. Just be aware people will respond to your work if you choose to share it with them. If you choose to keep it to yourself, great, write for yourself. But the moment you start sharing, people will respond and they will respond in a variety of different ways with their words, with their facial expressions, or if you're trying to sell your work with their dollars. They will respond in a certain way. People will offer criticisms and feedbacks and compliments and advice and all of these things. It's up to you to develop the thick skin to both choose when to take and choose when to ignore it. I like to hold to the idea of I am not as good or as bad as people say I am. I'm not as good as bad as people say I am, knowing that people will compliment, people will critique, but my art, my poetry, is an expression of the moment and I'm giving it to the world and they're choosing to receive it, how they receive it. That is where they're going. The main bits of advice that I have touched upon from this book are covered in my book. How to write evocative poetry. It is a guide book that goes in depth on all of this stuff, and my recent collection is poetry from a Duck n of the soul where I share and express the poems that are coming. Once again, I invite you to check those out and grab a copy and critique. Tell me how I am going. I want to remind you that the poems that we looked at in this course are available as a PDF if you want to grab a copy and have a look through and re read those. I also want to invite you to do the project. The project being you share a poem, you asked for feedback in the form of praise or rather a compliment or a critique. Yeah. You're going to ask for a compliment critique. I will offer that to you and you can offer it to the other people doing their projects in the classroom as well. We're going to receive it. We're going to learn to ask for it, we're going to learn to receive it in the way that it's meant to be received, and we're going to ignore everything else. One thing I want to suggest is that if you've like this course, somewhere will be the option to rate and review it. Please do rate review. Let me know getting better here. This is me asking for feedback. I'm saying, Hey, how did I do in this video? Tell me. Tell me what I did well, tell me how I could improve, tell me what questions you want to answer and I will do it. Does that make sense? That is the opportunity for you to give me that feedback, and it really does help. Either way, I've got a bunch more courses on poetry and writing and expression, both available now and coming soon. If you'd like this, follow along, check out the other stuff I've got going up on Skillshare. Yeah, let's write some amazing poetry together. Gotcha.