Randy on Poetry Workshops

I don’t like poetry workshops. I don’t have the right to tell a poet to take out a word or to change a line. I can suggest but what if the poet’s ego is smaller than mine? They may change a word that makes the poem for other readers based on my five second review. I also tend to not like having to write by a deadline. I like to write whenever I have free time or something must be addressed. I am an emotional person so I can create easily but I’d rather let it be natural. I have learned this semester to really work with tension in a poem. What two things are fighting each other? What is at stake for the speaker? However, I know that the criticism in this class started making me write for the writers in this class and not for the audience I wish to have. So these poems will probably never see a future collection of mine.