Books > Road songs
“… a child of straight roads
square fields
I count mile stones
crave curves
branchings
yearn for complications…”
More about Road Songs
These poems came to me while driving along highways, mostly when I was alone in the car and paying attention to the world outside my vehicle. Usually an image strikes my eye and I play with it, trying to find strong words to describe it. As I drive, I keep the words flowing so that by when I'm ready to stop for a snack or to refill the gas tank, most of the lines of the poem have been thought out. I try to write them down quickly before I lose them, but once written down, I'll usually revise and shape several more times before I've got the poem as lean and trim as I like.
Sometimes it's a strong, scary moment, like the one described in Wrong Turn which felt more Blair Witch than I liked.
Sometimes it's a beautiful moment as in Sky Blue.
There are two tricks that work for me--the first is to pay attention--notice the world in detail as I travel through it. And then play with the words to make them sing. Because I've written these moments into poems, I can now simply read the poem and close my eyes and see again the scenes I passed weeks or months or years ago.
A fun way to live in this most interesting world. Try it yourself!