Reading Response - Week 4 - Writing Poetry - Chapter 6 - By Chad Davidson and Gregory Fraser

     I chose this chapter because it gives so many helpful suggestions for writing and critiquing poetry.  It made me more aware of the importance of explaining the reasons for a particular assessment.  Just saying that you liked or disliked  the piece is not helpful without explaining why.
     Giving objective reasons for an assessment helps alleviate hurt feelings in the writer.  Hurt feelings cause anxiety about sharing and can cripple the creative process.
     I liked what Asinov said about writers falling into two camps:
     "1.  Those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review and
       2.  Those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review."
     The most helpful workshop concentrates more on objective bases than on subjective bases.  Affective reasoning is one of the biggest perils in critiquing poetry.
     Poems need to be assessed on their own merit, and students need to be able to provide their own interpretations rather than to expect the meaning to be delivered to them.  Poems will have different meanings to unique individuals.
     Whether we speak of the author or the critic, the melding of the creative faculties resides at the heart of the culture of the workshop.