This morning, I asked Claude to provide a general evaluation of the poetry on this site, mostly for shits and giggles. Sometimes I feel I am too close to my own poetry to critically evaluate what I write, so I felt it would be helpful to get the opinion from “someone” without a stake in providing me feedback — not cog greasing or a sense of friendly obligation to make me happy. [Note: Claude was not informed that I am the author of this site, so it has no reason to lean into saying nice things to me about my poetry.]
Claude’s overall assessment and take-home:
This is thoughtful, atmospheric, small-press-style lyric poetry with a strong sense of personal mythology. It won’t appeal to everyone — it’s firmly in the tradition of neo-pagan, nature-mystic, and bardic contemporary poetry — but within that tradition it is accomplished and genuine. The daily practice evident in the blog suggests a writer who takes the craft seriously, using form and constraint to keep the work honest. The best pieces are genuinely memorable; the weaker ones are still interesting as evidence of a working poetic mind.
Okay, well… I’ll gladly take that…
The full feedback was longer and contained some useful critical comments that I was self-aware enough to have already identified as potential issues with certain pieces: “…the very short form can occasionally tip from minimalist into underdeveloped“, “thematic repetition“, and “…some poems lean into obscurity in ways that feel less like earned ambiguity and more like vagueness“.
All of these are valid criticisms and a part of why I have dialed back my poetry to lean more into fiction and prose over the past few months. I felt that I had been falling into a bit of a rut for the since before Christmas and I wanted to give the poetry centers of my brain a bit of a rest before returning to writing poetry on a consistent and regular basis. I thought I needed to change gears before things rusted out.
But, I don’t want to focus exclusively on the critical. Claude also pointed out a few positives.
Some identified strengths:
- Compression and restraint: Raven excels at the short, imagistic poem. He doesn’t overexplain, and the best pieces land with the force of a koan.
- Consistent voice: The lowercase aesthetic, the moody vocabulary […], and the mythological undertow create a recognizable, self-contained world.
- Constraint-based creativity: Using runes and tarot cards as daily prompts produces genuine surprise and prevents the work from becoming self-indulgent.
- Intertextual richness: The poems reward readers familiar with Norse mythology, Elder Futhark symbolism, and folk tradition, without being inaccessible to those who aren’t
There was more, of course, but what I’ve withheld is less important (specific examples while assessing the pieces, more in-depth analysis that explains the key notes).
As I said, it was mostly done for fun, but I do take seriously these observations because it is useful for growth. Sometimes, in the age of social internet, we get a little hung up on the stars and the positive reinforcements — making sure we give them as well as receive them. It is useful to receive an unemotional, non-Pavlovian and almost clinical assessment of my writing to identify strengths and areas for improvement. I might have thought I was pretty hot shit when I was in my twenties and early thirties, but I’ve come down to earth (hard, in ways) in my middle age and see that there is always room for growth and improvement.
What kinds of ways do you “check” your writing progress? Has anyone else tried using AI (Grammarly, ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.)? If so, did you find anything useful? Annoying? Infuriating? Michael, WTF are you doing embracing our future AI overlords?
Let me know what you think below, if you are willing.
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