10 Questions for Poetry Manuscript Readers

How to ask for clear feedback and avoid the pitfalls of conflicting ideas

Photo by Robbie Noble on Unsplash

I’m a few months into the process of assembling my next poetry collection. Maybe it’s just a fact of the creative process: The closer you get to the end of any long-term creative work, the more challenging it becomes to see clearly what is needed. 

There is no simple formula for shaping a book of poems. But I think the bigger challenge is this: We have to turn away from the internally oriented process of poem development—which can feel so delightful and familiar—toward an external audience, one that can seem indistinct, distant, and hard to know. As poet Camille Dungy says:

“We all need to create our own maps and guidebooks .… So in that sense, it’s like the self who is guiding the self. But then there is a moment where I do start thinking about an audience because if I’m just writing to myself, I could just journal. So now how do I make sure that your valuable time as a reader is not squandered, that I’m telling you something that you need to know? I don’t really know what you need to know. But what I can do is share something that feels necessary for me to share. And I can make sure I’m doing it in a way that honors your time, your intelligence, and your heart.”

As we begin to structure our collections, we move more fully into “thinking about an audience,” about what is “necessary to share,” and how an audience will receive the poems not just individually but as a whole.

Know when to get focused feedback

So we start with our closest audience—writer friends, mentors, or other professionals who can help us understand how our collections are landing, as Dungy suggests, in minds and hearts. I just initiated the first feedback round on my collection after spending several months sifting through drafts, revising, sorting, and beginning to imagine the manuscript’s shape, its ideal structure.

I can’t emphasize this enough: Don’t be too hasty to reach this milestone. Be sure you are ready for feedback. Give yourself at least a couple months to assemble and shape the manuscript yourself, reviewing poems and titles, trying different structures, different poem orders, etc. All poems in the fledgling collection should be as close to finalized as possible.

Take the time you need to consider deeply every word, every line, every choice in lineation and form. If you’re feeling unsure about the poems themselves—still asking, “Are these any good?”—are you putting together a collection prematurely? You might still share the poems you’re gathering with readers, but you’ll want to ask a different set of questions, such as these.

(Side note: Ideally you’ve placed a good number of the poems in journals. Even small presses suggest that a minimum of 20% of the poems should be published in journals before you submit the manuscript.) 

10 questions for poetry manuscript readers

Ask yourself these questions, then ask them of your readers.

1. Book title. Does it spark interest and suggest the book’s driving theme?

2. Epigraph. If one is included, does the voice add direction and/or context to the theme suggested by the title? 

3. Opening and closing poems. Do they make satisfying entry and closing points for the book? Do they frame the contents of the book? they “speak” to one another? I chose two poems that reference birds. The first sets up the internal situation of the speaker—discontentment, numbness, not able to connect fully with the natural world. The last poem answers it — the speaker is released from the burden of disconnection, anxiety, etc.

4. Continuity. Do poems flow logically and/or organically from one to the next, and from section to section? 

5. Sections. What do you think of the groupings? Do epigraphs before sections add direction and context?

6. Section order. Do the sections first hook the reader and provide context, then expand on themes as the book progresses?

7. Poem order. Same Q as above, but for poems in each section.

8. Poem titles. Do titles orient readers and build continuity throughout the manuscript?

9. Any poems that don’t fit. Do any poems seem out of place where they are situated? Or within the manuscript as a whole?

10. Poems missing. Does any theme or topic seem truncated, unfinished, like there is a gaping hole in the manuscript vs. a potent omission?

Less helpful at this stage? Hard-core line edits. Notes on favorite poems, which poems the reader thinks are “better” than others. Don’t ask readers, “Are these poems any good? Which ones are the best?” You have already determined that the poems are your very best work and are, aside from minor title or form adjustments, finalized as poems.

Select your readers carefully

Not all peers—and not all potential mentors or editors—will be ideal guides for you. So, be picky. If you plan to hire a pro, ask about their approach to shaping a poetry collection. Have writer friends had a good experience with this reader? Do you love the structures and other choices they’ve made in their own collections? Are they associated with a press that publishes books that you like? How have they helped others? How do they provide feedback? Is feedback given once, a one-time written appraisal, or over a series of meetings with an opportunity for dialog?  

Choose peers wisely, too. Ideally, share your work with peers who have some experience with book development. Look for peers and mentors who share an appreciation of similar forms and aesthetics. 

Above all, be firm about what kind of feedback you would like. Are you in an earlier stage of development, still open to line edits? Or are you looking for feedback on the collection’s cohesion, themes, and structures? Remember, too much feedback, or feedback of the wrong kind, can derail your process. The better you guide your readers, the more likely you are to walk away with useful feedback.

Remember, you are the ultimate judge of what offers clarity and what just muddies the water.

Have you engaged peers or mentors in your book shaping process? What was most helpful?