Half Starts and Trail Offs

Finding poetry in the routine

Apr 13

MeredithPoetry, Reading, Uncategorized, Writing i'd rather be jumping in puddles, national poetry month, poetry out of nothing challenge, red rainboots, yay poems! 1 Comment

As promised, I have my first Poetry Out of Nothing Challenge poem to share with you today.  When  I was pre-writing yesterday’s post, I found myself noticing small things in each day–the man behind me at the stoplight, rapping his heart out; the girl walking to the light rail in her bright red galoshes; the exquisite taste of a lemon cake where the sweet of the icing meets the tart of the citrus. These are not, at first glance, the things of literary greatness. And yet they are, in their way, infinitely poetic.

So that’s where I started: the details. Specifically the details of my drive to and from work–that man singing, the way I feel as I sit stranded at a red light, the inevitable panicky feeling of running late. It should be said that I’m an awful commuter. It’s not that I mind getting up and going to work, it’s the drive to get there. I have road rage, I want to smash traffic signals, and, being as my car is locked in 1993 (i.e. tinny radio and broken tape player), I’m a perennial channel surfer who often comes down with a terrible case of the irksome pop song earworm. All this adds up to lots of awful singing interspersed with howls of fury and well-chosen hand gestures.

As I made notes about my commute and sat with them for awhile, I found in them what I believe to be those shared experiences that I hope others may recognize from their own lives: the ruts, figurative and literal, that we wear into our minds and landscapes each day. The  surprising things that can come out of the routine. The ebb and flow of frustration around tiny inconveniences.

I know this may not be a great poem, but it fits where I’m at right now, and so I let it be my guide, let it help me synthesize the repetitive motion of the work-a-day world with all its successes and, yes, stresses. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Commuter

It is
hands on
the wheel,
wheels on
the pavement,
circular motion
of a day.

He is
the man behind
me spittin’
rhymes like no one
is watching,
but
I am.

That is,
if my blood
doesn’t boil
over, foot hovering
above the accelerator,
because,

thing is,
when given
control of my own
destiny, I am
never
on time.

~Meredith Purvis

****Poetry Out of Nothing Challenge Update****

1. The deadline has been extended to April 27, 2011.

2. There are now prizes! Yay, prizes! I’ll be creating a page with general info about the challenge and details about the prizes, so keep an eye out for that today or tomorrow.

3. Winners will be determined by popular vote. I’ll figure out the voting process and pass that info along as soon as I have it.