Response to Student Journal, Week 9

Darin,
I love this improv. It is really unusual and gives way for great opportunities to grow into a strong draft. I like that it starts out grounded in a place and quickly moves into action with the Angel slinking up next to the speaker. That the Angel in fact slinks is interesting and unexpected. We normally, of course, think of Angels descending, ascending, or magically appearing, so the very verb slink implies that this particular Angel is uncommon. The connotations of the verb slink also put this Angel in a shady light, which is also an unexpected turn for this archetypal character. A few suggestions I have if you continue to work on this draft is to pay attention to your line breaks. You end a great deal of lines with weak verbs or non-images: to it, know, of, and me. It really makes a difference and sticks with the reader if you end a line on a strong, concrete image. Or consider, I may have mentioned this before, the idea of reading your lines independently from one another. For example, your line: “it might close forever, for all I know” reads as an independent sentence when taken out of context of the poem. The line, “I’ve got problems and nightmares to,” however, reads oddly if taken out of context. It’s really just something to consider when you want to concentrate on strong lines and line breaks—they do help strengthen the overall architecture of your poem.