Weighted Rubric (100 points)

Score every dimension from 1 to 10, then multiply by its weight. The weighted mean is the preliminary 1-to-10 score.

Dimension	Weight	What to examine
Intention and form fidelity	12%	Does the poem fulfill its stated or inferred project? If it claims a form or constraint, is adherence accurate or is deviation purposeful?
Diction and verbal precision	14%	Are words specific, necessary, alive, tonally coherent, and free of accidental cliché or filler?
Image, metaphor, and sensory life	14%	Do images create experience rather than merely label emotion? Are figurative relationships exact, generative, and controlled?
Sound, rhythm, and music	12%	Read aloud: cadence, stress, sonic pattern, silence, rhyme, dissonance, breath, and whether music serves meaning.
Structure, lineation, and movement	10%	Line breaks, stanzas, syntax, turns, pacing, white space, sequence, and visual or procedural organization.
Emotional and intellectual pressure	14%	Earned feeling, tension, stakes, discovery, complexity, and whether thought develops rather than restates.
Originality and specificity	12%	Distinctive perception, voice, situation, operation, or language. Avoid equating novelty with obscurity.
Coherence and development	7%	Enough connective tissue for the poem’s chosen mode; productive ambiguity is not the same as confusion.
Ending and aftereffect	5%	Does the ending turn, deepen, release, disturb, echo, or deliberately refuse closure without merely stopping?

Formula:

preliminary score = sum(dimension score x weight) / 100

The form-fidelity score is contextual. Free verse is not penalized for lacking rhyme or meter. A sonnet is not rewarded for counting correctly if the language is inert. An asemic, found, procedural, visual, devotional, spoken-word, or code poem must be evaluated by the operations it actually undertakes.

Meaning of Scores 1 Through 10

These are anchor descriptions, not automatic labels.

• 1 — Nonfunctional as presented. The intended poem is largely unavailable: placeholder text, severe incoherence, or pervasive accidental failure. There may still be a seed worth keeping.
• 2 — Very weak. A few usable moments appear, but the draft is dominated by generic language, confusion, broken form, or unearned statement.
• 3 — Weak but legible. The project can be identified, yet several core dimensions fail and substantial rebuilding is needed.
• 4 — Developing. Some real craft and intention are visible, but inconsistency, predictability, slackness, or structural problems repeatedly interrupt the poem.
• 5 — Competent draft. The poem works at a basic level and has credible strengths, though it remains familiar, uneven, underpressured, or insufficiently revised.
• 6 — Good. The poem is purposeful and often effective, with clear strengths and a manageable set of weaknesses. It may be publishable after focused revision.
• 7 — Very good. Strong, distinctive, controlled work. Most choices reinforce the project; weaknesses are local rather than foundational.
• 8 — Excellent. Memorable and highly achieved. Language, form, movement, and pressure interact; revision needs are small and exacting.
• 9 — Exceptional. Sustained mastery with unusual force, precision, and afterlife. Nearly every choice feels necessary while still allowing productive risk.
• 10 — Landmark-level achievement in its frame. Transformative, inexhaustible, and extraordinarily controlled. Use rarely. A 10 is not “perfect”; it is the evaluator’s highest defensible judgment under the stated frame.

Calibration rules:

• Do not bunch every sincere draft between 7 and 9.
• Do not treat 5 as an insult; it means competent current work with identifiable revision opportunities.
• A score change of 0.5 is meaningful. Avoid fake precision such as 7.83 in the final report.
• Compare only to relevant expectations and, when supplied, the author’s own goals or body of work.