Do you need to be a good writer to offer good feedback

[milo]

Hello

I think it is obvious you need to be a good reader to be a good writer.  I would even suggest someone not bothering to write until they are a good reader. But, what about the converse - do you need to be a good writer to offer valid critique.

I learned poetry mostly through online workshops and forums where the mantra has long been:

 - Everyone has something to offer in comments regardless of whether they are a good writer.

Now part of this approach, of course, is to combat the anemic response on forums filled with poets eager to post their poems and talk about those.  Part of it might be the egalitarian viewpoint that everyone has something to offer or possibly that a great writer could offer great critique even though they lask the talent to be a good writer.

Ezra Pound famously said:

" Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work. Consider the discrepancies between the actual writing of the Greek poets and dramatists, and the theories of the Graeco-Roman grammarians, concocted to explain their metres."

What are your thoughts?

[Tiger the Lion]

My short answer is no. 
A reader with nothing to offer regarding spelling, grammar, meter, rhyme, enjambment etc. may for example have profound insights into the flaws of a metaphor. The scholar might tick all the boxes for proposing edits to the mechanics, yet miss a larger breakdown that the everyman notices instinctively.

[busker]

Let us take a different question: does a good writer HAVE to be a good critic? The answer is clearly, no: a good writer (don't know about 'great', or what that bar is) can very well be a lazy critic. Or he might be exhibiting unconscious competence without ever having analysed his own work, or anyone else's, critically. We're all learning machines, but not all of us study the learning process itself, which is the critic's job.

To your question: does a good critic HAVE to be a good writer? Yes and no.
Yes - if you're looking for feedback on what would make a poem better.
No - if you're looking for feedback on what is or what is not working for him as a reader. That feedback is often more valuable than hearing what changes to make, which a lot of the time don't work anyway.

[milo]

My short answer is no. 
A reader with nothing to offer regarding spelling, grammar, meter, rhyme, enjambment etc. may for example have profound insights into the flaws of a metaphor. The scholar might tick all the boxes for proposing edits to the mechanics, yet miss a larger breakdown that the everyman notices instinctively.

I think you are conflating "good writer" with scholar here.

You don't think a good writer would " miss a larger breakdown that the everyman notices instinctively"?

Thanks for the response

---

Hello busker, some interesting points here:

Let us take a different question: does a good writer HAVE to be a good critic? The answer is clearly, no: a good writer (don't know about 'great', or what that bar is) can very well be a lazy critic. Or he might be exhibiting unconscious competence without ever having analysed his own work, or anyone else's, critically. We're all learning machines, but not all of us study the learning process itself, which is the critic's job.

I think this is a great point but it may only hold up in the theoretical.  Also, even if most good writers were bad critics it wouldn't necessarily mean the statement is wrong  (I believe it's a fallacy of the inverse)

Let me ask you, when you receive what you believe to be good crit, does it come from those you consider good writers?  Can you think of an example when you received great crit from someone you don't consider a good writer?

To your question: does a good critic HAVE to be a good writer? Yes and no.
Yes - if you're looking for feedback on what would make a poem better.
No - if you're looking for feedback on what is or what is not working for him as a reader. That feedback is often more valuable than hearing what changes to make, which a lot of the time don't work anyway.

I think this is perhaps the most important point.  Yes, good feedback comes from good readers.  One of the reasons I started with the statement that good readers make good writers.

Thanks

[busker]

[quote="milo" pid='276566' dateline='1767372578']
Can you think of an example when you received great crit from someone you don't consider a good writer?
[quote]

Not so much 'not a good writer' as 'not as good as the best ones on this forum' - to which belong, in my view, Mercedes, Ray, Todd, Milo, Tranquility Base, and - in recent years - Rivernotch, with Tiger the Lion also being a strong contender. I'm thinking of Ella here. Her feedback on what worked for her in a poem was as useful as anything else by the elite league of writers named above, with the exception of Rivernotch, whose feedback is painstaking and encyclopaedic.

[milo]

Can you think of an example when you received great crit from someone you don't consider a good writer?

Not so much 'not a good writer' as 'not as good as the best ones on this forum' - to which belong, in my view, Mercedes, Ray, Todd, Milo, Tranquility Base, and - in recent years - Rivernotch, with Tiger the Lion also being a strong contender. I'm thinking of Ella here. Her feedback on what worked for her in a poem was as useful as anything else by the elite league of writers named above, with the exception of Rivernotch, whose feedback is painstaking and encyclopaedic.

Actually, I am glad you brought up ella, she is an excellent example.  Both one of the best at giving feedback as well as receiving feedback.

I think a lot of times I forget that giving feedback is a massive waste of time if you cannot convince the writer to be receptive of it.

Everyone was receptive to feedback from ella.

Thanks