Serious question.

[Lizzie]

Sometimes praise comes just because your work is even slightly less shit than the writers you're with.

IME, all poems are worth working on. Keep what critics like and rework what they don't. The poem may still be shit after five edit/crit cycles but I've learned some thing about that particular poem and the bigger picture, my own and the way my impressions land on readers. Sometimes I go back to the original and now know better how to keep and tweak it. On occassion it turns out there really was a decent core in there and I can end with something decent, but the process is a delicious torture that interests me, it's a way I enjoy spending my time. I may be two steps forward, one back, but in my world this is fun.

I couldn't agree more. It saddens and frustrates me when I see new poets give up (either on a piece, or on poetry completely) the second they get a bit of negative feedback. This isn't an all or nothing business, this poetry thing.

There's always value in the work of it, even if it's just to learn to recognize what bad writing is so that you know better what not to do the next time around. A lot of people are not serious enough about poetry to put that kind of persistent effort into it. It takes true desire, ambition, and patience to weather the tough times of continually not achieving the quality you're aiming for.