Danger: Poets at work

• Workshops can help writers to appreciate how others respond to their work. This is useful, especially if a writer's been working in isolation and wants to be published. However, you should avoid writing merely to please the group unless you consider the group to be a fair sample of your intended audience. Don't do what others say just because they said it; a poem "designed by committee" is unlikely to be very good. Stay in control.
• Avoid being pigeon-holed. Use the workshop as a way to experiment.
• Beware of certain workshop types: the haters of any obscurity; the ruthless stickler for formal regularity, etc. They may miss the point.
• Beware of a group's low expectations. Some groups are a retreat for those who've tried (but failed) to break into the world of literature, and they may discourage you from trying.
• Don't take praise too seriously. "I think that when everyone in the group, including the professor, says `Now it's OK', you're bound to end up with something dreadful". (Kiran Desai, The Times (Higher), Aug. 15, 1997).
• Workshops are good at improving bad poems, bringing them up to an acceptable (even publishable) standard, but not very useful with non-standard good poems. Rules may help beginners avoid blunders, but beyond that they may not help.
• Don't get ground down. Preserve the individuality of your poems. But don't think that because only you understand the poems that they're unique and therefore valuable.