Judging Poetry

There is a constant litany of complaint after every Revel that the judges are ignorant fools who wouldn't know a good poem if it flew up and bit them on the nose. While I have to wholeheartedly dispute that, it is true that far too many of the people who give their time to help judge the Revel are dropped into it with no real knowledge of how to judge a poem. In many cases, they are victims of the American educational system and of politically correct teachers who have taught them that poetry can't be judged, that there is no such thing as a bad poem (most likely because they, the teachers, couldn't even write an adequate limerick to save their lives), and that the only thing that matters is "self-expression" ... a term that edges close to narcissism. After a rather vitriolic discussion on Nexus Forums, I wrote a painfully long post about how to judge poetry. It's not as well organized as it could be, which I'll fix one of these years, but if you find yourself judging a Revel with no clue where to start, it should give you some pointers.

Ciara, she of the poem that was not about autumn leaves, said:

Perhaps this is a time to enlighten everyone on how to judge good poetry so that bad poets like myself can never win again and then rant when people rip her to shreds for it.

Y'know, I think she's right. I've been a Revel judge several times, and while we are told about judging, there's really no information given about poetry. I happen to be a poet and a reader of poetry, but I'm sure that's not the case for many others who answer the call. I can't imagine what it must be like to someone who doesn't really have much of a background in poetry at all. You look at 50 or 60 poems, you have to pick a half-dozen that will get awards ... but how? The following is my attempt at answering that question.

First of all, to dismiss the people who will reply "No poem is better than any other, it is art and art can't be judged" ... go back to your literary magazines, please. This is the Poetry Revel, and therefore poetry is being judged. Art is always judged, and always will be, whether by an individual or by the consensus of culture which says that Shakespeare is an immortal poet and Worldwalker is a wanna-be. The same holds true for the people who have argued that anything that expresses the creator's feelings is perforce a poem. Never mind that this definition encompasses everything from a painting to a novel to a 3-year-old having a temper tantrum in a toy store ... we'll just stop right there. From this point forward, poems will be treated as things which can be evaluated, measured, and judged, and if that doesn't fit your particular worldview, please stop reading now. Go make your own website and discuss your definitions of poetry there.

Now, as to how to judge a poem:

Format

First, there are the basic format requirements. Generally, that is simply a matter of length, and this is usually checked by Poems when the entries are posted on the judging board. However, sometimes there are special forms. The two notable ones I have seen have been haiku and sonnets, and I think there was a Revel which called for limericks once. I'll give each of these forms a brief summary towards the end of this essay.

There is also the matter of appropriateness to the topic. Just because the poem mentions something briefly -- autumn leaves, the sea, smiles, chairs, you name it -- does not mean that is what the poem is about. Read the poem and ask yourself "what story is this telling? What feelings is it creating?" If a poem is about love, a couple of lines about the lovers meeting by the seashore does not turn it into a poem about the sea. When I've judged Revels, both as a Muse and as a community judge, I've had to pass over some good poems because they were off-topic. It sucks, but one of the rules of the Revel is that a poem must be on a specified topic, and a poem that violates that rule is no more eligible to win than one that has too many lines, or one that talks about computers and rocketships.

Types of Poetry

Next is the matter of the structural details of the poem itself. Here, we have three categories, in reverse order of rigor: Free verse, blank verse, and traditional verse. In order to properly judge this on a technical basis, you first need to determine which of the three you are looking at.

Traditional verse is what most of us think of when we think of poetry. Certain lines of it rhyme in a set pattern, and there is also a consistant pattern of syllables and stress within each line, called the meter. For example, from one of my favorite poems, The Cremation of Sam McGee, by Robert Service:

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;

Read that aloud. Notice how the rhythm bounces along, pulling you from one line to the next, and the second and fourth lines rhyme. If it has meter, and some sort of rhyme scheme, it is (or is trying to be) trying to be traditional poetry.

Then we have blank verse. It has meter, but no rhyme. Shakespeare was the master of this -- much of the text of his plays is blank verse. Here's an example from Milton's Paradise Lost, which is thousands upon thousands of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter:

He spake: and to confirm his words, out-flew
Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs
Of mighty Cherubim; the sudden blaze
Far round illumin'd hell: highly they rag'd
Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arms
Clash'd on their sounding shields the din of war,
Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heav'n.

As you can see, it still has a strict meter, but no rhyme. If what you're looking at sounds like poetry when you read it aloud, except that none of the lines actually rhyme, it is (or is trying to be) blank verse.

Free verse is a lot harder to define. I personally don't usually define it as poetry at all, but that's just me. It has neither rhyme nor meter. However, free verse is not just a paragraph of prose with the line breaks in funny places. It has an internal rhythm, not meter but a different sort of pattern. It pulls you onward through the lines. It might use techniques such as alliteration, consonance, and assonance to make the words sing and dance. Without the structure that traditional or even blank verse provides, free verse is the most difficult form of poetry to write well. And, sadly, as the Revel judges see every Saturday, it is by far the easiest form to write badly. Or, rather, it is all too easy to slop some words on the page, claim it is free verse, and then live in fear that someone will see through what you did and cry out "The emperor has no clothes!" If you're looking at something with neither rhyme nor meter, it might be free verse but, in the Revel at least, the odds are it's just dreck.

Rhyme and Meter

The first thing to do when you're evaluating the technical merit of a poem is to read it aloud. Does it flow freely off your tongue, or do you find, for instance, that the words suddenly allbunchingup because there are too many unstressed syllables together? A poem with meter (traditional or blank verse) should stick with its pattern. If the poem has a rhyme scheme, the metric scheme will often parallel that. For instance, look at Mary Had a Little Lamb, with the stressed syllables in all caps:

MAry HAD a LITtle LAMB.
its FLEECE was WHITE as SNOW.
EVeryWHERE that MAry WENT
the LAMB was SURE to GO.

The first and third lines don't rhyme, but they're tied together by having the same meter: DA da DA da DA da DA. The second and fourth lines, which rhyme, follow a slightly different metrical pattern: da DA da DA da DA. If you throw an extra syllable in one of those lines, it just won't work:

Mary had a cute little lamb.
Its fleece was white as snow.

That doesn't work at all, does it? So check those syllable counts. Check those metric patterns. You don't need to know what they're called, all you need to know is that they should follow a consistant pattern. If you're not sure, as I said, read the poem aloud. If your tongue stumbles over some part of it, that's probably broken meter. If the lines are of different lengths, or don't stick with their patterns, that's bad. If a poem is trying and failing, like that one of Ciara's, you'll see something like this:

TWO fa-ted LOVers would sit UN-der-neath a TREE.
their LIFE was FILLED with HAP-pi-ness; with MERry GLEE.
they SAT by that TREE through sumMER and through FALL.
NOTHing else IN the world MAT-tered at ALL.

All but one of the lines have different numbers of syllables. The stress falls in different places in each line. This poem is trying to be traditional verse and failing, ending up as nothing at all. Failed representational art isn't the same thing as successful abstract art, and the same is true of failed poetry.

Next, if it's traditional poetry, you want to study the rhyme scheme. Does it have one? Does it follow it? Look at the rhymed words themselves. Keep an eye out for false rhymes. For instance:

The tough get going through
The going that gets rough.

Nice rhyme, except that it isn't one. While you're looking at the rhymes, look out for trite, over-used rhymes. Ciara's "tree" and "glee" is a typical case. For some reason, people really abuse "glee" for any long-e word they want to rhyme, and I've said before that any poem that uses "love" and "dove" should be disqualfied. Creativity is important in poetry, and over-using those worn-out rhymes shows a lack of it. Look for forced rhymes: words that don't really belong there, sometimes even whole lines that don't belong, that are stuffed in because the poet needed something that rhymed. The line "Or it will come out worse" from my poem On Poetry is an example; one of these days I have to make that line not suck.

Something else that gets forced is inversion of the normal word order. That is something like "Jack run, now see." Some people do it because they think it's somehow "more poetic" but usually it is a sign of someone who has fallen in love with one particular word, and is dead-set on making another line rhyme with it. Or should that be: "On making another line rhyme, the poet is dead-set." If used in moderation, inversion is not bad. But when it's all over the place, it makes reading the poem more difficult, it scrambles the meaning, and it's a sign of lack of creativity and skill.

Now, a brief mention of some of the specific types of poems which sometimes come up:

Haiku

Most people think haiku are easy to write. You just need to have three lines, one with 5 syllables, one with 7, and one with 5, right? Actually ... wrong. Traditional haiku aren't quite that simple. There are also two critical rules for content. First, the haiku should include a word, called the kigo, to establish it in time. This is commonly done with a reference to nature and the seasons. Second, a haiku is actually divided into two parts, often denoted in English with a semicolon or dash. They are different but complimentary. For instance, here is a translation of one of Basho's:

An old pond!
A frog jumps in-
The sound of water.

We have our seasonal reference, our kigo, in the frog. It's summer, when you find frogs hanging out on the edge of ponds. And we have the two parts of the haiku, one describing something visual, the pond and the frog, and the second describing a sound, the splash of water. Each of them enhances the other.

When you are judging a haiku, count syllables of course. But also make sure the kigo is in there, the two parts have the proper distinction, and that it performs the role of a haiku: to crystalize one moment, one feeling, one thought, like a jewel.

Sonnets

I once had an English teacher who insisted that sonnets were the most difficult form of poetry to write. I responded by leaving sonnets on her desk when she wasn't around ... sonnets complaining her class was boring. :D Hey, it was! I actually find them easier to write than other poetry because I don't have to worry about finding a structure that works; the fact that it's a sonnet lays that out for me in advance. Traditionally, sonnets are on themes like love and friendship, but that's not required. My first Revel win (and first Revel entry, in fact) was a sonnet about the history of the Bekyun's Spear. A sonnet is, however, a very highly structured form, and if something breaks the rules, it's not a sonnet.

The Shakespearean sonnet consists of three quatrains -- verses of four lines -- with an ABAB rhyme scheme, followed by an AA couplet. The quatrains do not generally rhyme with each other; it could also be described as ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Each line is iambic pentameter -- that is, a line of five (penta) units (meter) each of which consists of two syllables of the form duh-DUH (an iamb). Look at the couplet from Bekyun's Tale:

though NOW i MUST forSAKE these ANcient LANDS,
my SPEAR i LEAVE in NOble HEroes' HANDS.

That's iambic pentameter. If it isn't ABAB CDCD EFEF GG and it doesn't have a syllable pattern exactly like that, it isn't a Shakespearean sonnet. If the requirement is sonnets, a poem that doesn't match that pattern is no more eligible to win than a poem about NASCAR racing.

Someone has probably noticed that I keep referring to Shakespearean sonnets; is there another kind? Yes, in fact there is. It is the Italian, or Petrarchian, sonnet. It is two quatrains and a sestet. The rhyme scheme is even more rigid than the Shakespearean form: it must be ABBA ABBA CDCDCD or, more rarely, the concluding sestet may be CDECDE, but nothing else. Getting really technical, each quatrain must end with a period. The first quatrain introduces the theme and takes it in one direction, the second takes it off in a different direction. Then the sestet goes off in yet another direction, with the first three lines (tercet, if I haven't overwhelmed you with technical terms yet) developing that aspect, and the final three bringing it to its conclusion. You can see why I don't write Petrarchian sonnets! In fact, if for some reason the Revel organizers ever decide to require them some week, that would be a really good week not to judge; the odds of actually getting any valid ones, let alone good ones, are slim unless a few of us poetry geeks decide we want to try it just for the challenge.

So, if you're judging sonnets, the first thing is to make sure they really are sonnets. If a poem doesn't match the proper pattern (Shakespearean or Petrarchian) then it isn't a sonnet. Check rhyme scheme, check meter, and cross off the ones that don't meet the requirements. Once you've thrown out all the ones that are not in fact sonnets ... and I would recommend cutting people some slack on the required development of the sonnet theme ... it's time to look at whether they're good sonnets. Look at how they develop. Does each quatrain cast a slightly different light on the theme? Does the concluding couplet (or sestet, if they're doing Petrarchian) properly wrap up the theme?

Limericks

Once in a while, limericks get involved. They are best explained by example:

There once was a warrior named Fred.
Whose Whirlwind often left him dead.
But his repair expense
Has been much lower since
The day Fred bought a Polearm instead.

Okay, as limericks go, it's pretty lame. I just wrote it as I typed this. But it gets the point across: Five lines, rhyme scheme AABBA. The A lines follow the same meter, commonly da-DA-da-da-DA-da-da-DA. The B lines follow a different meter, da-da-DA-da-da-DA. The first couplet establishes a situation, the second couplet develops it, and the final line concludes it. Whether it's Fred and his Whirlwind problem, or the old man from Nantucket with the bucketfull of cash, the structure is the same. Also, it should be funny, wry, or amusing in some way. Yes, I know mine isn't. Notice how none of my Revel wins is for a limerick?

Judging limericks is fairly easy. Get rid of the ones that aren't limericks -- the ones that don't fit the required format. Get rid of the ones with painfully forced rhymes, tortured syntax, etc. It's a very colloquial form, so if someone has to wrench the words around to do what they want, they're missing the point. Look over the remaining limericks and pick the ones you like best.

Imagery, Mood, and Word Choice

Finally, we come to the hardest aspect of any poem to quantify: The imagery and emotional impact. This is something that can't really be reduced to a set of rules -- if it could, we could all read Poetry for Dummies and be great poets. And, I'll admit, this is the aspect of poetry that I myself am weakest in. I'm technically competent, but not all that creative. But there are some things to look for.

One is the appropriateness of the meter and the word choice to the theme. For instance, look at a stanza from Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade:

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Read that one aloud. It was written to be recited, and it deserves to be. You can hear the galloping horses as the doomed 13th Light Dragoons rode toward the guns. It's the ideal meter for that subject. Nearly all of the words in that stanza are single syllables, and in fact I don't believe there is a word with more than two syllables in the entire poem. Most of the stressed syllables start with hard consonant sounds.

It would not work, however, for a poem about starlit nights, or love, or snowflakes falling. For that, you want softer, gentler words, smoothly flowing into each other. If a poem about snowflakes is harsh and choppy, it comes out more like a snowball fight! So pay attention to whether the overall sound of the words and the meter fits the mood of the poem.

Likewise, watch for words (like that abused "glee") that don't really fit the mood, but were jammed in there to make something rhyme. Better to have poetry that doesn't rhyme than to use a word that spoils the imagery. (but if it's going to rhyme, it all should; if it isn't, none of it should) Look out for words that don't mean quite what the poet thinks they mean. I've seen some excruciatingly painful examples of thesaurus abuse in Revel entries, even in winners. The least one can expect of a poet is to use a word that really means what he wants, not one that sounds similar or has a related, but inappropriate, meaning.

To what division of poetry does it belong, and is that appropriate to the theme? There are four divisions: narrative, telling a story; dramatic, as if in a performance; lyric, expressing the poet's thoughts and feelings; and rarely didactic, or teaching, imparting a message or moral. If the theme was, say, "The History of Buya", narrative poetry would probably be most appropriate. If it was "Character Sharing", lyric or didactic poetry would be good. If it was "Unrequited Love", you would expect to see lyric or dramatic poetry. Lyric poetry about the history of Buya, or didactic poetry about unrequited love, will generally feel subtly wrong.

The poem should involve as many senses as possible. Sight and hearing, of course, but there are others to consider. What is the temperature? Is there wind? Is there a smell of fresh baked bread, or barnyard animals, or a crisp autumn morning? Look for the ways the poet has touched the senses -- not as a laundry list, but worked into the color and texture of the poem.

Does the poetic form enhance the words, giving it deeper meaning than it would have had if the poet had simply written it out in prose? If it is meant to be in a particular style, such as my

And, finally, does the poem have an impact? The most perfectly constructed poem, appealing to every sense there is, ideally suited to its theme, is nothing if it is trite and meaningless. Like music, poetry is capable of bypassing the analytical, conscious mind and grabbing you by the emotions. I utterly hate Walt Whitman's poems in Leaves of Grass but I can't deny that they have that kind of impact. Read Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and you won't forget it. Great poetry is something that makes you forget everything else and read that poem over again a couple of times. While I doubt if Maya Angelou is going to be entering the Revel any time soon, that kind of impact is what you're looking for.

Hopefully, all of this will be of some help to the members of the community chosen as Revel judges. It's not the authoritative manual on anything, of course, but at least it should give you an idea of what to look for. Happy judging!