Poetry / Driving North Out of Paradise Valley

Good Evening.  I really enjoyed reading, “Driving North Out of Paradise Valley”.  This is a wonderful piece of work.  The imagery is sooooo strong and I could see everything but, “Unnecessary Heimlichs”.  What does that mean?  Metaphor is also very strong.  And I just love the southern vocabulary you’ve used to convey this drive.  I wish I could be more help to you!  Keep writing and good luck!  —Mary Louise

I really liked all of the valley’s throat imagery, it really works for this piece.  I don’t know that I really understand the end, though.  It seems somehow abrupt.  And I have yet to enitrely figure out how it ties in with the rest of the piece.

I like the warm feeling I got when I read this, it reminded me of driving on the open road and letting my mind wander into creativity. Very Good

OVERVIEW
Your free rhythms here are well plied, and they establish a good sense of tone and mental animation as the poem progresses. The imagery is fairly vivid, which keeps the reader’s interest in the piece, but it doesn’t add up to a total effect. This I find largely due to your ending as well.

WEAKNESSES
Your ending needs to be rethought and reshaped. To conclude a poem like this by saying that the answer to the sphinx’s riddle isn’t just “man,” but also “woman,” is too trivial a conclusion for the ride you’ve already created. It doesn’t live up to the power of your landscape or your crow-scene. (Were they really ravens, I wonder? If you know, stick with ravens… but if they were crows, don’t try to leverage your art with the fame of another man.)

More generally, I also find that your descriptions are a bit labored: seems like you have to “poeticize” every object you mention. You could be more selective, chose and time your metaphors better, and make a stronger effect, I believe. Especially in its first half, “Driving North” throws up more imagined images than scene-present ones, and the result is that the scene loses impact.

Also, be careful about harping on the same string too many times… Your choking/throat/Adam’s apple/Heimlich conceit is a TAD overworked. The thing about making a conceit effective is that you have to develop the idea, space out those developments a bit, show how the growth of the content and the growth of the idea keep pace. Otherwise, it’s decoration (in the bad sense).

STRENGTHS
Your image of the ravens is striking, especially given their stillness above the carcass, “beaks to the wind.” It’s an otherworldly moment, an eerie and deafening silence in nature. The reason I find your ending deficient is because I find this passage so potent. (Except the “knucklepop croaks”—do another trick already. This one is too toylike for such a moment.)

Your rhythms, as I mentioned, are strong enough to make free verse an effective option for you. Stick to that, and try not to let compound word-cluster pile-up syndrome attract your eye away from the subject. I know it seems original, but it’s a young-poet cliche: I went through it, as have hundreds and thousands of others. It weakens your opening, and weakens the end of the raven passage.

Whose strength, again, begs the rest of the poem to keep up.

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December 28, 2006

by camawin

personal info reviewer stats

No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
239	80.0% (55 votes)	26.9%

Age	Gender	Location	Last Login
25	M	Livingston, MT	November 07

just for the record they were ravens, quite common around here…larger and croakier than crows. thanks for the review

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This is a well crafted poem.
The imagry is great, but the individual images kinda overpower the general scene. Breaking it up into stanzas may help the reader soak everything in.
It took me afew reads to see how perfet the lines were. I wouldn’t change the working or language in any line.
The ending is lost on me, but that doesn’t matter. I don’t have to know exactly what every line means to know that it has some meaning, even if it’s private or beyond my sphere of knowledge.
Cheers,
A.J.W.

There was just far too much imagery in this poem. Imagery is a great thing used in the right way but I never really saw the idea you were trying to present because of the blockage of imagery. Be a little less descriptive of the scenery and more descriptive of your ideas.

goin’tochurch Sunday
I never liked the way some type going…you might as well put the g if your going to type the same amount of letters it looks more professional. You need to add a space between going and to and a space between to and church.

I firmly believe what the poem is missing is rhyming to pull it all together. The piece lacks flow from line yo line without it. You have lots of parts to try and set up imagery but in the end it fails to paint a picture for the reader of this trip. Good luck and keep writing.

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December 28, 2006

by camawin

personal info reviewer stats

No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
239	80.0% (55 votes)	26.9%

Age	Gender	Location	Last Login
25	M	Livingston, MT	November 07

lol i think you have reviewd my stuff before…there will be absolutely no nursery rhyming in my poetry thank you very much. also the lack of spaces was intentional.

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This is good.  I have no idea where Paradise Valley is, but I feel like I know what that must look like.  Your descriptions are fantastic.  This is a wonderful poem.

Wow.  This is a very beautiful poem.  You’re visuals really grab the reader and make them finish it.  

This is excellent work and I would like to read more of the things you write in the future.

Fantastic job!!

i like how you give the road a human quality and abilities. the line “spit smoothed as if by a mother’s hand” is my favorite. i can’t quite put my finger on it, something about the care of a mother i guess.