almost never

The below is a computer-generated response from Neo, Neopoet’s AI:

The poem's central conceit — an aged, reclusive poet finding a kind of immortality through younger writers who absorb and rework the speaker's lines — is genuinely affecting, and the closing couplet earns its compression. "Their voices make my exile home" is the poem's strongest moment: it resolves the tension between withdrawal and persistence without over-explaining it, and the slant rhyme of "roam" and "home" feels earned rather than forced.

The main weakness is that the poem leans on abstractions where concrete detail would do more work. Phrases like "scrolling years," "taut voices," and "restless minds" name qualities rather than embodying them, and "the veins of tomorrow" tips into a kind of stock grandeur that the quieter passages resist. The image of "tongues tasting the syllables I once carved" is the poem's most tactile moment and points toward what more of the poem could do: if the borrowed lines were made more specific — a particular image, a sound, even a single word the speaker recognizes in someone else's mouth — the reader would feel the transmission of influence rather than being told it is happening. The visual indentation pattern also does not yet seem to carry consistent meaning; it reads as decorative rather than rhythmic, and standardizing or rethinking it would help the poem's form feel as intentional as its best lines.

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The poem is so wanderlust-core, even though it wears its "once in a rare while I step outside" on its sleeve, which is very cute. "tongues tasting the syllables I once carved" reminds me of "we still got the tatse dancin' on our tounges" lyrics, and not many can fyi, different intensity, same bittersweet knowing of the "veins of tomorrow" that carry us all. Artists...they are magic performers, at any stage of life.  "My silence sleeps, but my lines still roam; their voices make my exile home." I wonder what Rimbaud would think of this "silence" in the context of his legacy.

Hello, CB,

Recently took a poetry audit class with juniors and seniors, 19 - 22 years old, at the local college here.  This poem is so befitting of my overall experience.

"...taut voices, restless minds."  I remember being and feeling that way.  

Touching final lines  Such truthful closing words. 

Thank you!

L