Long before Indiana
had a jones Niiiice touch here. I noticed how you follow this style throughout.
for bullwhips, Andy
had one: repeatedly crackin’ The way you chose to position your line breaks makes the point very effective.
six feet of leather law laid Again, the line break draws my attention here; there seems to be a lot behind what he's acting out.
down on squirrels, birds
and rogue sisters – frayed Another effective line break.
tips raised suspicion and welts, wordplay: you're doing it right
lead to interventions, suspensions,
eventually to confiscation
in Ohio after a long session
with both Smith & Wesson
(much later on horse The use of the word "later" here seems to harken back to your first two lines, "long before Indiana" Was that intentional?
whipped, half-gone, (more doing it right)
he choked up too high, again, effective word play
came undone over the shuttle disaster) Did this (as it happened to Andy) happen in Indiana?
the summer astronauts
landed on the moon. I enjoyed how you tied the title back in with the ending.
Overall, I think your grasp and appreciation of craft made this poem effective and powerful. The word-play makes it that much more enjoyable, but I'm more struck by your choices in line breaks and by the overall imagery. The story is clear and the scenery you describe adds a nostalgic feel to it. I can picture a lot of this happening. And that is all just beyond the real substance of what you've got going there.
The only critique I can think to offer is that of your verse arrangements. You've got two lines on both the opening and ending, and then a break in between the childhood verse and the adulthood verse with a three line verse that I assume to represent his teenage years. This is grasping at straws here (because I really enjoy the poem the way it is and don't believe it needs to be changed), but if you really wanted to be nit-picky, you could aim for an even number of lines in the adulthood and the childhood verses. Of course, there's a justifiable reason, I think, for making the childhood verse longer and more robust; formative years are crucial, and by the end poor Andy doesn't seem to have much life left in him anyway (no pun intended). That being said, if you like it, leave it.
Another straw-graspy thing I can think to mention is that you say "with both Smith & Wesson." It's entirely possible I'm missing something there, but I think the "both" might be in reference to the incidence named prior to that verse and the incidence named in that verse itself, but the one thing that makes me think maybe not is that the incident with both Smith & Wesson happens in the three lines prior and not after. That being said, maybe Smith could be the previous three lines and Wesson could be the following- as if there's an escalation in the behavior- the gun use that led to the suspensions and whatnot was only half the trouble it would amount to be - the rest of the potential is met when Wesson makes things real later on.
All things considered, I'll be subjective here and say I liked it, very well done. Personally I got out of it a real illustration of both the tragic damages and aggressions of the patriarchy.
Good stuff.
