when a friend asks for crit

[Todd]

Ask her what she wants from your critique. Ask her is there some area in the poems she's concerned about and hoping that critique will shore up. This will give you a sense of how objective she can be about her work. If you feel she wants support and encouragement but not really critique than stay on the surface with your comments--don't lie of course, but don't bother to go deeply into the poems. If she sees herself as her poems than it will only damage your relationship. If she can accept though that even great work gets rejected and wants you to find any obvious disqualifying flaws then help her. You will be successful in this to the degree that she can be mature and objective. That may be harder with highly personal material but it's still necessary.