I think if you really want to improve your writing, you should be able to take the rude stuff. I don't mean that as a critic one should be rude, but that as a writer, even a rude comment should be accepted--as long as it's about the writing and not the writer, i.e., "This is terrible writing" is rude, but it's better than "You suck."

When I crit, I try to be polite. In many ways, I'm afraid to be too nasty, especially if I'm critiquing someone who is clearly just starting out. This is mainly because I'm chicken and have, in the past, been hurt terribly by some comments I've received and don't want others to feel the same. I've always gotten over them though and I've learnt to tell whose "rude" criticism I should accept and whose should be ignored.

For example, I once got a comment from someone on a poem I posted at an online workshop, saying, "The remainder is frankly boring, leaden and dully declarative." Sounds awful? It stung, but I took it anyway, because before that he said, "This has some minor possibilities. Consider cutting S1,2,3,5 and the last two lines of S7." which is neither kind nor encouraging, but it's helpful. I've made up my mind not to ignore comments of this kind (especially coming from this critic) because they're informed opinions. One way of telling whether someone's being rude just for the sake of it or if they're telling you what they genuinely think is to read crits given to other writers, or to read their poetry, if possible. It's a bit sly, but effective.

Once someone else said that I was a mediocre poet. There were a few other adjectives used and a self-preserving part of my brain has eliminated them from immediate recall. But luckily he also called me obnoxious, boring, a feminist (in a derogatory way) and various other things; "luckily" because I realised that his criticism had more to do with disliking me than with disliking my writing. In fact, much before he began disliking me he told me my poetry was good. So hmm. A few days after his nastiness, a friend linked me to the rude guy's blog; it was filled with misogynistic "fiction"--explains why he hated "feminists" so much.

So, this my long winded way of saying: mean criticism is okay as long as it helps the poem and doesn't insult the writer.

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