This, by the way, has nothing to do with critique I’ve received here. It applies to another site where I post stuff from time to time.

I recently received feedback on a poem (the “country highway” poem) that followed all along the same lines — which is that the piece was unfinished, was too symbolic, needed more detail, etc.

One of the critics took it upon himself to riff on the poem, not editing it but creating a whole follow up stanza which the various critics agreed was better than the original and showed more of what they were talking about. One even suggested i should now move the poem to the “collaborative” poems section because of the additions that had been made. And the author of the new stanza — whose work i do respect — said he was was just doing it to show me “the poem that the sketch i had written could have been.”

Now, mind you, I’m not upset about any of this. People have their own perceptions, of course. But this doesn’t feel like useful feedback, paritally because it missed the point of how i wanted the original poem to feel — deliberately dry and academic in its approach to a powerful subject. In other words, no one dealt with the poem in front of them, but rather with the poem they would have written on the same subject.

I’m at a loss as to how to respond. How do I say, “um…no” when critique is this far off of the intent without appearing totally asinine and defensive?