This weekend we were spending time with my daughter-in-laws family and I got to explaining the process I use to work through a poem.

I wrote this poem in a similar way to how I do it now. The biggest difference is that all of my poems now start out as written drafts which are then transferred to the computer, thus having a different launch, which is, I will add, a significant difference.

I explained to them that I use AI to assist me with editing–find places where the poem is working and not working. They asked why I use ChatGPT and not one of the other AIs, Claude or Gemini for example–and I said simply that ChatGPT works best for me.

The truth though, I added, was that I haven’t tried the others.

So, I did.

Here are three responses to this prompt:

Can you analyze this poem that I wrote? I have done several drafts and consider it close to done. I’m looking for insights in where the poem works and where it could use tightening.

I then gave them the poem above, “So Driven.”

If you are interested, here are the three responses I got.

Gemini:

This is a striking piece. You’ve captured a gritty, rhythmic sense of “entropy vs. effort.” The poem feels like it’s vibrating; the language is thick and mechanical, much like the “combustion” and “bricklaying” you describe.

Here is an analysis of where the poem is firing on all cylinders and where the gears might be grinding a bit too much.

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Where It Works

1. The Sonic Texture

Your use of consonance and internal rhyme is excellent. Phrases like “nor ire nor roil nor roll” and “dugsunk some down” create a heavy, physical mouthfeel. The poem doesn’t just describe a crumbling road; it sounds like one.

2. The “Bricklay” Repetition

The visual and rhythmic “stacking” of bricklaybricklay is a highlight. It mimics the actual labor of trying to stave off nature’s reclamation. It creates a frantic pace that contrasts beautifully with the “slowquickslowquick” erosion at the end.

3. The Central Metaphor

The tension between the organic (roots, chickweed) and the industrial (asphalt, stone, combustion) is handled with a lot of nuance. You aren’t just saying “nature wins”; you’re highlighting the human obsession with maintaining a “golden line” against an inevitable “coaled endtime.”

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Where It Could Use Tightening

1. The Prepositional Pile-up

In the middle section, the poem gets a bit tangled in “this” and “to.”

to this old house on / this old hill, but will…

Using “this” five times in seven lines can feel less like an intentional rhythm and more like a placeholder.

• Suggestion: Try replacing one or two instances of “this” with more specific sensory adjectives. What kind of hill? What kind of house?

2. Dialect vs. Consistency

The line “sliding down them banks” introduces a colloquial/dialect tone that doesn’t appear elsewhere. While it adds character, it slightly clashes with more formal/abstract words like “wizened” or “combustion.”

• The Fix: If you want that grounded, local voice, lean into it elsewhere. If not, “those” or “the” might keep the focus on the imagery rather than the speaker’s voice.

3. The “Dugsunk” Transition

The section “which such as mine / will be dugsunk some” is the most syntactically difficult part to parse. It slows the reader down significantly—which can be good—but here it feels a bit “clumpy.”

• The Fix: Consider if “some” is doing enough work there. “…will be dugsunk / down and down” might hit harder without the qualifier.

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Technical Highlight: The “Slowquickslowquick”

I want to point out that slowquickslowquick is a fantastic invention. It perfectly mirrors the way erosion happens—long periods of nothing, followed by a sudden collapse. It echoes the bricklay section and gives the poem a symmetrical “staircase” feel.

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A Final Thought

The ending is haunting. Reducing the human experience down to “two-ply tires” and “measures” effectively strips away the ego of the “warring” we do to keep our paths paved.

Would you like me to try a “tightened” rewrite of that middle section to see how it flows with fewer prepositions?

Claude:

Analysis of Your Poem

This is a genuinely ambitious piece — it’s working toward something rare: a poem that enacts its own subject matter through its form. The dissolution of infrastructure becomes the dissolution of syntax, lineation, and conventional meaning. That’s a real achievement, and the best moments here are striking. Let me work through what’s landing and what’s still finding its shape.

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What Works

The opening is excellent. “asphalt dissolves / as chickweed and sugar / maple roots push through” earns its place immediately. The enjambment between “sugar” and “maple” performs a small hesitation that mirrors the cracking of pavement — you have to cross the line to get the whole word, just as roots cross the asphalt to reach earth. This is the poem at its best: form and content fused.

The invented compound words are often your strongest moves. “dugsunk,” “slowquickslowquick,” “bricklaybricklay” — these are original and doing real work. “slowquickslowquick” in particular captures the rhythm of labor and erosion simultaneously, and the repetition of “bricklaybricklay” has a chant-like quality that earns its visual strangeness on the page. These feel like the poem’s genuine signature.

The thematic scope is genuinely large. The poem moves from a specific crumbling driveway to combustion engines to coal-age civilization collapse, and it does so without feeling grandiose because it stays rooted in physical, local detail: chickweed, fence-lined ways, the old house on the hill. The personal and the geological are in real conversation here.

“this coaled endtime” is a strong coinage. It does a lot quietly — coal as both fuel and geological era, “endtime” holding both personal memory and civilizational collapse without melodrama.

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Where It Could Tighten

The middle section loses propulsion. From “fence-lined way to / this old house on / this old hill” through “this hold that combustion / drives to pave these / ways to these old homes” — the poem accumulates “this” and “these” and “old” in a way that starts to feel less like incantation and more like drift. Count the repetitions of “old” in that passage: five or six. The word is doing important work in the poem overall, marking time and attachment, but it needs to be rationed more carefully so each use lands with weight. Right now they’re diluting each other.

“nor ire nor roil nor / roll can halt” is the poem’s most self-consciously “poetic” moment, and it sticks out because of it. The alliterative cluster feels imported from a different register — slightly archaic and rhetorical in a way that doesn’t match the earthy, physical language surrounding it. Consider whether this passage is earning its sound effects or just making noise.

The pronoun instability is interesting but unresolved. The poem shifts between “us,” “we,” “mine,” and implied first person in ways that feel like they’re reaching toward something — a collective self, a community of dwellers across time — but the shift isn’t quite controlled enough to signal intention. If this blurring is deliberate (and it could be a real strength), leaning into it more explicitly at a key moment would anchor it. Right now it reads partly like drift.

“which gravels old us / and slips us up when / also ice heaves up” — “also” is doing awkward work here. It reads like filler connecting two images that want a starker, more abrupt relationship. The ice heaving up deserves its own forceful arrival, not to be introduced with “also.”

The ending is strong in impulse but slightly too long in execution. “no more / old tolls to pay / nor two-ply tires / nor feet / nor measures / nor memories of efforts / made” — the anaphoric “nor” list is the right instinct, and “memories of efforts / made” is a genuinely moving close. But the list has one or two items too many before it gets there. “nor two-ply tires” in particular feels oddly specific in a way that deflates rather than concretizes. Tightening to three or four “nor” items would let the ending breathe and land harder.

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A Broader Observation

The poem is most alive when it trusts its physical, local imagery and least alive when it shifts into more abstract or rhetorical language. “Chickweed and sugar maple roots” earns its place in a way that “ire nor roil” doesn’t. Your compound coinages and the specific textures of this particular hill and drive are the poem’s real engine — the more the language can stay in that register even while reaching for large themes, the more unified the final draft will feel.

This is close. The architecture is there.

And finally, ChatGPT. Note though that I originally worked through ChatGPT and it knows the poem and brought it to this point.

Here’s a true cold read of “So Driven.” I’ll treat it as if I encountered it in a journal submission—focusing on what works, what may confuse a reader, and where tightening could strengthen the poem.

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Cold Read Analysis: 

So Driven

First Impressions

The poem reads as a meditation on human persistence and the impulse to build, especially roads and homes, in tension with natural forces and eventual erasure. It moves from geology and plant life → human engineering → time and disappearance.

Stylistically, the poem leans on:

• compressed syntax
• sonic play (repetition, internal rhyme, consonance)
• coined or compressed language
• rhythmic refrains

The poem feels conceptually ambitious and musically driven, but occasionally sacrifices clarity for density.

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Where the Poem Works Well

1. Strong Natural vs. Human Force Tension

The opening establishes the central tension immediately.

asphalt dissolves

as chickweed and sugar

maple roots push through

This works beautifully. The poem begins with entropy and reclamation by nature.

The specificity of:

• chickweed
• sugar maple roots

grounds the poem in the real world and builds credibility.

The phrase:

asphalt dissolves

is especially strong. It’s not literal, but it feels true.

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2. The Geological Layering

to fifty-seven stone

which gravels old us

This is interesting and surprising.

“fifty-seven stone” evokes crushed stone grading (likely #57 stone used in driveways), which gives the poem a subtle technical authenticity.

“gravels old us” is clever wordplay—gravel as both noun and verb—aging us.

This section works conceptually, though the syntax slows comprehension slightly.

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3. The Ice Heave Passage

also ice heaves up

and does its dozer

best to push such

memories away

This is vivid and memorable.

The phrase “does its dozer best” is excellent—personifying frost heave as a bulldozer.

It’s both humorous and accurate.

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4. The Central Idea: Human Drive

This is where the poem declares its theme.

this hold that combustion

drives to pave these

ways to these old homes

This is effective conceptually.

You’re connecting:

combustion → engines → paving → settlement → human persistence

The idea that combustion drives us toward home is strong.

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5. Sonic Repetition and Rhythm

Several refrains work well musically:

Brick Repetition

bricklaybricklay

bricklaybricklay

This mimics labor rhythm—hammer strikes or bricklaying motions.

Movement Repetition

slowquickslowquick

This nicely evokes:

• labor rhythm
• mechanical motion
• historical progress

These rhythmic gestures add energy to the poem.

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Where the Poem Weakens

1. Syntax Overload Early

This stretch is difficult to parse:

sliding down them banks

aside this rising drive

fence-lined way to

this old house on

this old hill, but will

nor ire nor roil nor

roll can halt

A reader has to work very hard to follow the grammar.

Issues:

• shifting clauses
• unclear subject
• archaic phrasing (“nor ire nor roil nor roll”)
• ambiguous references

This may intentionally mimic sliding / instability, but it risks losing the reader.

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2. Coinages Competing for Attention

You use several linguistic experiments:

• gravels old us
• dugsunk
• bricklaybricklay
• slowquickslowquick

Individually these are interesting.

But too many in one poem creates cognitive friction.

The reader spends time decoding language instead of absorbing meaning.

This is especially noticeable around:

which such as mine

will be dugsunk some

“dugsunk” is evocative but also unclear.

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3. Abstract Language Spike

This line feels more abstract than the rest of the poem:

this coaled endtime

It’s intriguing but also vague.

Is this:

• fossil fuel collapse?
• industrial era ending?
• environmental commentary?

A bit more grounding would strengthen the moment.

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4. The Warrens Passage

This part is interesting but slightly unclear:

where warrens once

were just as prized

Readers may wonder:

• rabbit warrens?
• underground living?
• metaphor for settlements?

It suggests a return to primitive dwelling, but the connection could be clearer.

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5. The Ending

The final section is strong in tone but slightly diffuse:

till there are

no more

old tolls to pay

nor two-ply tires

nor feet

nor measures

nor memories of efforts

made

The rhythm works well.

However, the progression is slightly uneven.

“two-ply tires” feels oddly specific compared to the more philosophical elements around it.

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Structural Strengths

The poem has a clear arc:

1. Nature reclaiming pavement
2. Human effort to maintain roads
3. Historical labor and persistence
4. Future erasure

That arc works.

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Key Lines That Really Shine

These lines feel especially strong:

• “asphalt dissolves”
• “does its dozer best”
• “this hold that combustion drives”
• “bricklaybricklay”
• “slowquickslowquick”
• “gravels old us”

These are the poem’s anchors.

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Where Tightening Would Help Most

Area 1

This section could likely lose a few words:

sliding down them banks

aside this rising drive

fence-lined way to

this old house on

this old hill

Possible issue: stacked modifiers without payoff.

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Area 2

This passage could be simplified:

but will

nor ire nor roil nor

roll can halt

The rhetorical flourish feels slightly out of register with the rest of the poem.

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Area 3

Consider whether all three are necessary:

• dugsunk
• coaled endtime
• warrens

One might carry the weight.

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Overall Assessment

If I encountered this in a journal submission, I would see it as:

A strong, intellectually ambitious poem with vivid language and sonic play, slightly over-compressed in places.

Strengths:

• vivid imagery
• musical repetition
• thoughtful thematic scope
• memorable phrasing

Weaknesses:

• occasional syntactic fog
• too many language experiments competing
• a few unclear conceptual jumps

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Final Score (cold read)

7.5–8 / 10

A strong poem with distinctive language and thematic ambition, likely improved by slight clarifications and selective pruning.

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If you’d like, I can also show you something interesting that happens structurally in this poem that Gemini and Claude may not notice—there’s a deeper rhythm pattern running through it tied to labor and mechanical motion. It’s subtle but quite clever.

My conclusion with these three analyses is two fold–this poem isn’t done yet. It’s done in the sense that I posted it here and it no longer could be submitted to a journal. I’m not sure I’ll work that through, though. Second, I appreciate the feedback from ChatGPT more than the other two. Combined I have an appreciation of what I accomplished with the poem and what I might change, but ChatGPT’s analysis is more complete.

With all of these the prompt makes the difference. A better prompt would produce a better and more useful analysis.

What I did realize in this comparison is that I am a better poet right now than I was then.

Hands down.

I see the things they are mentioning and I totally agree with almost all of it.

My effort right now is to write poems that I can submit and that will be selected to appear in literary journals and magazines. I have written about twenty-five-ish poems since I shifted my attention and my current poems are notably better than the ones I posted here.

Not universally so–I have poems I’ve started and abandoned in the past two months as well as poems from before that would merit being in my current portfolio.

A takeaway from this comparison and my anecdotal analysis is this–AI can help you become a better poet. But only if you use it the right way.

And what is that way? That’s a discussion for another day.

Below is the original response I offered to this poem if you want to read more.

And if you made it this far, thanks.

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We have lived at our little house on our little hill here in Pennsylvania now for twenty-six plus years and for the third time will be having the driveway paved, the toil from nature and tires and basketball games and mulch deliveries having taken their toll again.

My memory for this process, when I noticed the first few pieces of asphalt breaking up, when I saw the first crack, when the first root started pushing its way up, my memory for this breaking down is muddled. It was slow then quick then needed to be dealt with.

When we first moved here in 1997 the original paved driveway had given up the ghost and was all gravel. Gravel actually would be fine, but it would be frustrating to continually monitor the shared and paved driveway we share with our neighbors at the bottom of our hill, the gravel surely being washed with every rain down the hill.

The cost for this paving has grown, I think, more than double. Each time, looking back, we chose a less expensive and comprehensive path without totally reconstructing the base layers of gravel and went with lower bids.

Not this time. This time we are going to do the job right. And of course, in all senses of the word, we are paying for it.

So this poem grew from this driveway experience.

I again wrote it in a burst, though this time I did quite a bit more editing to address places where it felt unclear.

For instance, where the first draft read

which such as mine
will be dug some 
down and down 
this golden line we
bricklaybricklay
bricklaybricklay

I felt (and my AI mentor pointed out) did not connect its dots, so to speak. So, liking how the words slowquickslowquick and bricklaybricklay worked in the poem, I came up with the word dugsunk and arrived with these revised lines:

which such as mine
will be dugsunk some 
down and down 
and against 
this coaled endtime 
this golden line we
bricklaybricklay
bricklaybricklay

I instantly loved the sound of “dugsunk” and knew that it helped this section pop. The theme I’m playing with her is that our house, our driveway will eventually be hidden underground, dug down and sunk beneath the earth. There is wordplay here with the word “mine” and digging down. Wordplay also with the word “coaled” implying both that we will become the coal of the future but also that this “endtime” will be cold.

Maybe that’s a bit too clever. Probably. For sure.

But it is fun to do.

I intended the line “this golden line” to have multiple interpretations. First, it echoes the short phrase I use several times here “this old” which is also echoed with the lines “this hold”, “this coaled”, and “these old”.

The golden line is also about the golden years we are heading toward, or so they are called. And also this is a subtle reference to “The Wizard of Oz” where Dorothy and her crew follow the golden brick road to see the wizard.

I secure that reference when I use the word “wizened” as well as the doubled line “bricklaybricklay”, a line I want to be seen visually as bricks lain down.

Using words shoved together this way is a reference to Ronald Johnson’s Ark and its poetry-world famous lines

earthearthearth
earthearthearth
earthearthearth

though bricklaybricklay doesn’t have phrases and words hidden within, except a bit the word “clay”, at least when read out loud.

On top of this there is another layer, though perhaps only I would ever know this. My poem “a tinman has hope too” plays with the words “heart”, “hearth”, “earth”, “heat” and “art” while the title itself lets you know is also about “The Wizard of Oz”.

As I wrote today this influenced my choices, so in that way it is meaningful, at least if a reader is interested in where a poem came from, in the forces that made it the way it is. And this explication and documentation is the purpose of these post-poem blog posts, so there you have it.

My style of late has leaned into lyricism and wordplay, and the lines

now and how we 
warred our way 
where warrens once 
were just as prized
yet just as 
slowquickslowquick
wore away

really lean into this, to the point they seem to be falling over. I would accept some criticism of this, depending on the critic’s justification.

For instance, what if a critic just said, “this part is too silly with too much rhyme and double meaning to warrant calling this poem in any way ‘literary’”?

How might one reply to this?

I spoke with my AI mentor and posited this question. Here’s the conversation we had:

My AI mentor (Chat GPT):

I’d push back on that critic by questioning their rigid definition of “literary.” Literary poetry isn’t confined to somber tones or strict formal structures—it thrives on play, on the way language stretches and surprises. Wordplay, rhyme, and layered meaning have deep literary roots, from Shakespeare’s puns to Joyce’s linguistic gymnastics to poets like Heather McHugh and Angie Estes, who revel in the slipperiness of language.

Your lines “warred our way / where warrens once / were just as prized” contain a sharp interplay between history, violence, and nature, and the “slowquickslowquick” rhythm physically enacts the erosion and persistence you’re describing. It’s not just cleverness for cleverness’ sake—it’s serving the poem’s motion and meaning.

So if a critic dismisses it as “too silly,” I’d ask: since when has playfulness been a flaw in poetry? Play can deepen meaning, not dilute it.

Me:

Thank you! My argument would also be that having this or that opinion of a poem or part of a poem needs to be supported with justification, some form of documentation, not simply a dismissal based upon personal preference.

My AI mentor (Chat GPT):

Exactly! A well-founded critique should go beyond personal taste and provide reasoning—ideally rooted in craft, tradition, or the poem’s internal logic. Dismissing something as “too silly” or “not literary” without engaging with its function in the poem is lazy criticism.

Your approach values discussion over dismissal, which is the essence of good literary criticism. If a critic doesn’t like the wordplay, they should be able to articulate why—does it undercut the poem’s tone? Does it create an effect that feels unintentional? Even then, it’s about engaging with the poet’s choices, not just imposing a narrow aesthetic standard.

Your lines hold weight because they serve the poem’s movement, sonic texture, and layered meanings. If anything, a thoughtful critic should ask: How does this wordplay enhance or complicate the themes of the poem?—not just write it off because it doesn’t match their idea of what poetry should be.

And with that, I’ll leave off here for now.

We have a busy weekend ahead full of family and lots of driving, time to be together, time to watch the miles pass and listen to an audiobook, podcast, or two.

And now, what does the WordPress AI have to say about this poem in the visual realm?

Hmmm. Not that far off from my actual place.

The featured photo here was one that I took in the Capitol Building, filters and cropping applied. I love those claw-like shapes.