Reviewing poetry is often made to sound like a specialist's game, as though you need thirty years of reading behind you before you are allowed an opinion. You do not. What you need is attention, a pencil, and the willingness to say plainly what a book does and how well it does it.
What follows is aimed at someone writing their first short review — say 300 to 500 words — for a digest that runs criticism alongside essays and interviews. The method is simple, but it has to be done in order.
Start with two readings, and only one of them is work
Read the collection once without a pen in your hand. Read it as a reader: a few poems at a sitting, ideally in the order the poet chose. Marathon sessions flatten a book; four poems read properly will tell you more than forty skimmed before midnight.
When you finish, close the book and wait a day. Then write down, from memory, the three or four poems that have stayed with you, and a phrase about why. That list is your first piece of real criticism, and it is more honest than anything you will produce by force of will.
The second reading is the working one. Now the pencil comes out, and so does the argument.
Annotate with a system you will actually keep
Most beginners either underline everything or write nothing. Neither helps when you sit down to draft. Pick a small set of marks and use them consistently:
- A vertical line beside a line that startled you — for whatever reason: an image, a rhythm, a joke, a turn.
- A circle round a word or image that recurs across the collection. Repetition is often the poet's argument.
- One word in the margin per poem: thin, funny, overworked, moving, clever. Resist the urge to write essays in the gutter.
- Page numbers of anything you might quote, noted on the inside back cover as you go.
Keep a running list at the back of the book: poem title, first line, one-line verdict. By the time you finish, you have a map of the collection and a page of quotations to check. That is the raw material of the review.
Judge the book, not just the poems
A collection is an arrangement, and arrangement is part of what you are reviewing. Look at how the book opens and how it closes. Is the last poem a summing-up, a shrug, a change of key? Is there a sequence or a long poem doing structural work in the middle? Many collections sag in their second third; if this one does, say so, and say whether the poems around it earn the dip.
Watch for repetition that is not development. A poet may return to the same river, the same hospital corridor, the same grandmother, and each return may deepen the book. Or the returns may simply be a tic. Your job is to distinguish the two, and to be fair about it. A poet who does one thing superbly is not failing. Say what the thing is, and whether it holds.
Write about craft without sounding like a textbook
You do not need technical vocabulary to describe how a poem works, and using it badly will cost you the reader's trust. Describe what is on the page: the line length, the shape of the stanzas, whether the sentences run past the line breaks, whether the poem rhymes and how audibly. Read two or three poems aloud. Note where your voice catches or rushes. Sometimes that is the poem's doing; sometimes it is your ear, so read again before you blame anyone.
The test of paraphrase
Try to say in one sentence what the poem is about. Then say what it is doing that the sentence cannot hold — the tone, the pressure, the way it undercuts itself. If you cannot paraphrase a poem at all, that may be a fault in the poem or a sign that you have not read it closely enough. Either way, say so honestly rather than reaching for praise you do not mean.
Build the review in three movements
For a 350-word review, think roughly: seventy words to open, two hundred to argue, eighty to judge.
Open with something specific — an image, a half-line, a claim about what the book is doing. Avoid the formula that begins "This collection explores themes of…". It tells the reader nothing they could not read on the back cover.
In the middle, make two or three observations, each anchored to a quotation or a named poem. Mix your praise and your reservations rather than saving the doubts for a polite final sentence. Watch your adjectives: beautiful, haunting and lyrical have been worn smooth. If you want to write haunting, delete it and describe the haunting instead.
Close by saying what you think. Would you reread it? Who should buy it, and who should not? A review that ends without a verdict is a set of notes, not criticism.
Quote briefly and get the details right
Copy quotations from the page, not from memory, and check them twice — punctuation included. Keep them short and proportionate to the review; a sentence or a line is usually enough to make your point. Always give the page number and acknowledge the poem and poet. Short quotations for the purpose of criticism are a normal part of reviewing, but every publication has its own rules, so ask your editor before you quote anything more substantial.
Check the book's details against the title page: publisher, year, and the name of any translator. Do not guess at facts about the poet's life, prizes or sales. If you cannot verify it, leave it out.
A workable routine for a short review
- Read the collection once, without notes. Rest a day.
- Read it again with your marks and your back-page list.
- Write four or five sentences of plain judgement, unedited.
- Choose two quotations and one poem to discuss closely.
- Draft the review in three movements; do not worry about length yet.
- Cut the first sentence you wrote. It is usually throat-clearing.
- Read the draft aloud, check every quotation and name, then file it a day early.
Do this four or five times and the process stops feeling like a test of your taste and starts feeling like a craft. That is the point at which the reviews get better.
Photo: ThoughtCatalog / Pixabay
