They don't do they?

I'm using this line of argument with my wife who is currently trying to get me, at my advanced age, to learn to drive on the miserable basis that, since we live in Misty Valley, Brigadoonshire, it would make the family's life inestimably better if both of us could drive for school, food, help etc. But if I drive, I tell her, it would be an admission that my poetry is bad.

The only exception to this rule that I know is Philip Larkin but Martin Amis (who, incidentally, thinks all good novelists have bad teeth) declares with some authority that Larkin's creativity declined as soon as he got behind a steering wheel.

Learn to drive. Larkin didn't have a wife and kids to drive to school.

Besides, there's the question of which comes first, the driving or the bad poetry. If you are a good poet, chances are you will not be able to master driving in any event. Now's the time to find out.

I drive pretty well. Which, I suppose, confirms your theory.

Driving is dangerous: It turns any previosly written poem into trash - instantly!

Conversely, if you should happen to write a good poem, your whole history as a car driver will never have happened, and history will be just as instantly rewritten: You will never have driven a car, have no driver's licence and none of the consequences of the car driving you've never done. This comes in very handy if you've been in a major traffic accident, or if you are about to get a ticket: But sir, you don't want to extort money from a poor, good poet. Look, here is a good poem for your wife. What do you say I give it to you, and none of this will ever have happened?

------------------
Svein Olav (The poet formerly known as Solan )

[This message has been edited by Svein Olav Nyberg (edited October 03, 2005).]

I presume this is tongue in cheek Hugh; either that or you need a better therapist. As I'm sure you know (or would know if you stopped to think), outside of totalitarian states, there has never been, nor will there ever be, a hierarchy of proper or improper subjects for poets.

As to poets who drive, there are too many to try to name. Driving is part of 20th/21st Century life, as your wife seems to understand. To pick two poets almost at random: Les Murray has a marvellous poem about the sense of liberation to be found in driving; and Heaney has written many poems out of the experience of driving. The following link is one of my favourites by Heaney:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~abardubh...a/poem023.html

And here's the first lines of Murray's 'Portrait of the Artist as a New World Driver':

"A car is also
a high-speed hermitage. Here
only the souls of policemen can get at you."

I would add that a car is also a stationary hermitage, though people may wonder what you're up to in there (see my poem on the Deep End: SANDYMOUNT).

Oh, and this might interest you:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...25/ai_19021753



[This message has been edited by Mark Granier (edited October 03, 2005).]

This discussion puts me in mind of Wendy Cope's assessment of tumps (typically useless male poets):

A tump isn't punctual or smart or efficient,
He probably can't drive a car
Or follow a map, though he's very proficient
At finding the way to the bar.


Having said that, we don't own a car, though in theory I can drive one, at least if it is an automatic.

If I drive in a way that teenage kids find thrilling (because of my spontaneous "sound track" about other drivers, I presume), does that make me a good or a bad poet?

It's not driving that anyone has to learn, Hugh (it's so easy in an open area!), but staying on the road, especially when there's another car trying to get by.

Try it, it's fun! Especially in Brigadoonshire when it's foggy.

Jo Shapcott said that 2 tendencies she'd noticed in poets were 1) hypochondria 2) an inability to drive (or at least a dislike of driving).

That's what Jackie Kay said, as well, in recent article in the Independent.

Now this is something I know about if not poetry.

I don't know if "Good poets don't drive cars" but if you do not drive your poetry will improve.

Driving a car slowly through the uncrowded country side is one thing, but these days, at least in Texas, it is mind numbing and dangerous. Over 80 teenagers have died in auto wrecks in the last year in the county San Antonio is in, and 8 people have died in a four mile stretch of four lane highway south of where we live. People here drive fast, road rage is frequent, and accidents (crashes) are all over the place. People pass recklessly, tailgate and speed without regard for consequences, and there are few, because law inforcement here is lacking. And don't be the one who suggests putting speed-bumps in your neighborhood here in Texas!

Last year, when I drove my son to school, there were four accidents in four days in a row in the one mile to the school.

Poetry does not come out of being mentally and emotionally shocked on daily basis. Stress blinds you.

It is so odd to think that we have all these wonderful things in modern life and yet people drive so fast in cars that will literally disintegrate into pieces if anything goes wrong--and they do it to themselves! Why? So they can get to their stressful jobs sooner?

The ugly American is becoming the angry American.

The ideal life for me does not have a car in it. This is why I am attracted to places like San Francisco, New York, Monhegan Island and Sanibel Island. I lived half my life on 5 square miles in Baltimore, almost all in walking distance.

Driving is really a stress factor, which will affect all of your life, let alone writing poetry.

If I go down to the Trek bike store today and buy a bike will I write better poetry? It might better be an off-road bike. Texas has the highest death rate of cars killing bicyclers in the US.

TJ

A cautionary tale about driving, even in idyllic Iowa:

Driving: The Far Corner of the Map

The scaly back of the monster
writhing in the green sea
rises in humps, and he rides it
till a last and highest
twist of the neck
flings him westward
into a blinding tongue of flame.

He falls off
the edge of the world.

Ah, how the mind can wander. I think Shakespeare had poet drivers in mind when he wrote: "Such men are dangerous. They think too much."

Cheers,
Jan

I think it's OK for poets to drive so long as they do it badly.
I often scribble notes for poems when driving, which ensures I drive badly, especially when using a mobile phone and eating a sandwich at the same time.

David, if you're not also applying mascara, you've got nothing to brag about.

What fun! I never tried applying mascara while driving. It must be awesome.

Considering the price of gas (petrol, you know?), perhaps a more germane question is whether good poets ride horses. And then there's dressage. I do think I could apply mascara on Golfball, but not on Shakti. Shakti doesn't know how to slow down enough to walk, and Golfball doesn't know how to run. Shakti likes to jump, and that's where I have sometimes had to get off (at her physiological behest, if you know what I mean. I guess I'm lucky she never broke any of my bones).

I spent almost all day driving last Friday, and wrote no poetry at all that day. So it must be true, Hugh.

I only started driving 3 years ago, just before reaching 40. I was ambivalent about it and still am, but I must say that I have acquired a new sense of both freedom and responsibility. I have taken a new direction in my poetry since that time. I have immersed myself in the haiku spirit and taken a sharp knife to the cliché, padding, sentimentality and uninteresting subjectivity which previously riddled much of my poetry. And I would say with some confidence that I have become a better poet than I was before I started driving. Having the car also means I can reach the natural world more easily than before. I've now acquired a Peugeot 206 CC, which has a roof you can pack into the boot at a push of a button. It's a joy to drive. I cycle to work still in the summer months, but I drive to work in the winter months. And I no longer suffer from the bugs and viruses which cycling to work exacerbated. I'd been scrounging lifts with a good ecological conscience for 20 years, so now the shoe's on the other foot (as they say in Danish).

Your disinclination to start driving is a sure sign that you are a good poet, Hugh. Now, start driving.

Duncan

Terese, applying mascara while driving is only awesome if there's a man in the car freaking out over it. This lends the activity a certain depth of meaning which is best described as perverse pleasure.

Since riding horses and bicycles is what I do most naturally and most frequently, I should like to mention that I can do these things not just while juggling a water bottle, bowling ball, and bullhorn, but while chewing gum. I am certain that taking advantage of all modes of transportation makes me a better poet. It should be said that it's a good idea for folks include such facts in all their cover letters and bios.

Always happy to pass on these helpful writerly tips.

Well, this is pleasant enough, airing a few observations and laconic asides. But you were just kidding Hugh, right?


[This message has been edited by Mark Granier (edited October 03, 2005).]

Why should Hugh just be kidding, Mark? Sure he presented it light-heartedly, but I can only assume that there is a serious consideration behind his question.

Oh, and Hugh, I forgot the most important thing of all. After acquiring a car I then saw my increased mobility as a basis for having a dog. The first I've ever had. And I'm so happy about having a dog. The atmosphere around my home has improved no end.

Start driving.

Duncan

Well Hugh, I for one don't drive. But then you and I have opposite problems: every month I get a bus pass, put about £20 on my card for the tube, and take a few cabs. I love sitting up on the top deck of the bus, and have written many poems up there (of varying quality, I have to say).

You on the other hand are in a situation where you have to ask people for lifts, or possibly even stay home. My uncle, a painter in the Catskills, has to stay at home whenever my aunt is out; she's the wheels. Sometimes he gets stuck for days on end in the house, 3 miles from the nearest shop, and he's like 65 now, so it's no joke. (My other uncle, also a painter in the Catskills, who had only one hand, used to say he didn't drive "because I'm a Surrealist: I see things that aren't there." But my other aunt did used to ferry him and the kids around constantly.)

I've known poets who drove; I've known poets who were friends with Jo Shapcott & even liked driving. I know good poets with good cars, even, though there is a slight tendency towards little rattly things. I suppose it depends if they have partners with decent jobs. (Wallace Stevens aside, in most families I know where there's a poet AND money, the money doesn't come FROM the POET. James Merrill doesn't count.) And what about car radios? Come ON - there's the good side!

I think in Les Murray's case the driving takes on a role of celebration of the common man. Anne Sexton has a poem about driving home from having an abortion, I think. I can really picture Sylvia Plath behind the wheel, with a little headscarf and a back seat full of little kids. And Paul Muldoon - toss-up - he could love driving around Boston, or he could equally get his wife to take him places. Dunno. I think Wallace Stevens used to take the train, come to think of it (there's a story about him taking the train to Philadelphia on business and arriving at the other office with a bag full of doughnuts); & of course he walked to work, but he lived in town.

Hugh, no one is more car-phobic than me, I mean and not in a home. I HATE the things. But I think Duncan's example is potentially an inspiring one, & I think you could consider driving, because if I can hold coffee, apply mascara and read a book while going over speed bumps and changing the volume on my walkman, up there on the top deck, I guess you can drive and write notes for a poem. Especially in Misty Valley. It must be so pretty.

KEB

PS - However, you don't have to show this to your wife!

[This message has been edited by Katy Evans-Bush (edited October 03, 2005).]

Another solution: come and live in Venice.
Gregory

Well I can top the lot of you. I got my licence just about two years ago. I had had a kicence in 1970 but let it lapse because I had a company car of my husband's and was terrified that I'd dent it--so I did--dent it--and I have always loved walking and looking and listening.

I rode a bicycle all my New Zealand childhood and adolescence. Bicycles are wonderful because you can smell the flowers and hear the birds.

I caught buses and the underground in London. I remember waiting, mini-skirted, in the snow for buses which never came. Often I had an appointment for an audition. As a polite New Zealander I would stand aside for the elderly and the lame and inevitably the entire queue would push past me and the full bus would drive away, leaving me standing at the bus stop.

I bought a second-hand yellow bicycle while working in Lewes and back in London I rode it from Putney, where I lived, to Knightsbridge where I loved to lean it against Harrods.

In Sydney I walked everywhere. That's how I got to know the birds and to understand the challengingly different structure of the plants.

My husband was ill a couple of years ago and finally I was forced to learn to drive. I had forgotten how. I got my licence and now drive and am enjoying it. I enjoy not being exhausted all the time. But I agree--it is not the way to feel the earth move. It is a lesser way to experience life. It has its good points but I feel I am less alive as I fail to hear birds and must miss light effects in order to concentrate on driving.

Beethoven believed that walking and creativity were inextricably linked and in my experience that is true. It has something to do with breathing and blood circulation and heightened senses.
Janet

PS: I just read Gregory's advice to live in Venice. Walking in Venice in early winter when most of the tourists have gone, is walking sublimely. I remember hearing so many great musicians rehearsing and canaries on windowsills starting to sing as their daily ray of sun caught them. I remember the constantly changing angles and light and glimpses of water up narrow lanes (calle--what is the plural?). The scents of cooking and the faces of other pedestrians. Walking is the human way to travel.

If not, take a boat.

---
Any nasty cracks about my poetry will be remembered and repaid in triplicate ;)



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited October 03, 2005).]

What about poets who can't ride a bike? Have they made their way into conventional wisdom yet?

Chris,
All poets aspire to owning a bike.

Surely?
Janet

Wendy, :) You and I should definitely take a car trip together one day. You're my kind of driver.

I confess I can barely remember any male freaking out while I was driving. (Except for the cops, that is, but they weren't inside the car.) Oh yes, the two French guys who drove cross-country with me in '69--they freaked out considerably. But they didn't really understand that once we got over the state line, everything would be copacetic and they wouldn't have to worry about the state police arresting all of us. It was just a speed trap. :)

And I have to admit, despite my customary supportiveness of other women who struggle against trivial convention, that it is the gentle sex who have been more likely to freak about my driving. Men can't bring themselves to show fear that way. Women may shoot me a dirty look when I back out of a driveway too quickly (they just didn't see me look in the rear view), or whatever. [Honestly, the truth is my radar or luck, whichever it was, held out for so long that I don't want to stress it any more. I've survived so many close calls I can hardly believe it myself. I'd prefer a horse for the city. The mounted police have them; why can't I?]

I defer to you as a horsewoman, dear wendy. Probably as a bicyclist too. I can't quite give in on the cars till I see you behind the wheel.

Bragging time. I have run with the lights on First Avenue (New York's Pamplona) from below 14th Street to the high Nineties - mid-afternoon - without catching one; I have made as many as fourteen (well, twelve greens, one yellow, and a sort-of-red) zipping downtown on Park Avenue late at night; I have lived and driven like a native in Mexico City and Sao Paulo. I'm good. If you want an entrant for a Seniors urban demolition derby, I'm your man.

On the other hand, I still don't have a book to my name. So maybe this proves the theory in reverse, and raises an interesting question. If I obey the speed limits, and stop changing lanes, will I get published?

Semi-related suggestion: possibly poets would be better drivers if they were to only drive vehicles with "poetical" names. Stay away things whose names are all numbers and initials, or tetosterone parades. None of this RSX300ES/GT, Dodge Magnum, Ford Eradicator or GMC Supra Dreadnought Mark II stuff. I can't find a perfect name for a poet's car, but Avalon and Esprit have possibilities. And I remember that, years back, Datsun (now Nissan) introduced something to the Japanese market called the Sunny Excellent. Left-hand drive, Hugh, so if one is still available, you can handle it in Scotland. And the name itself doubles as the first line of a haiku:

Sunny Excellent
scene on the Tokaido road
Hiroshige rocks

Michael Cantor

Wendy's right, of course.
Most women drivers around where I live will confirm that the main purpose of the rear view mirror is mascara application.
I'm seriously considering buying an Austin Seven Ruby Saloon, by the way. They were made between 1934 and 1939. You can get one in mint condition for about £6,500. Top speed's about 45mph, but they make a real statement:

http://www.austinsevenownersclub.com/

But Michael, you do have a book, a very excellent chapbook, and I have a copy.

Ah yes, I can picture the kind of rarefied, shrink-proof violet who would go in for those kind of cultural advertisments, a true artiste-poète, one with a calling.

My brother once owned two 1930 something Belgian Minervas and a Stutz Bearcat. He can't write poetry.

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited October 03, 2005).]

Michael, your post is a delight!

Do you mind, though, if I ask what system of numerology you're using? Is it Japanese?

Here are your numbers: say 98th Street ("high Nineties") to Tenth Street: 88 blocks? Out of 88 lights, making 14 "green" leaves, let's see, David? Are you there? Is that 74 red lights? Errr--hopefully you see my point. That would have taken an awfully long time! Not that I'm questioning your veritas, of course. It must have been some kind of Japanese typo.

(I didn't mean green leaves, of course, but green stoplights, oxymoronical as that may sound.)

Edited to say: OH NO! I just reread your post! My bad!



[This message has been edited by Terese Coe (edited October 03, 2005).]

I think we should be asking whether it's dangerous to versify while driving.

I have this suspicion it leads to rap.


Ethan
tryin' to recognize the realness...

Oh, I thought the topic was POETS DON'T DRIVE GOOD CARS. That I could understand.

Carol

Now this is getting SPOOKY.

But I must say that I have owned and driven cars every year of my adult life - from 18 up till two years ago - nearly 40 years. During all this time of driving, I wrote no poetry.

I played with it a bit, but not one line I would wish to keep.

In the past two years, however, I have had no car and very little driving, and have written a lot of poetry.

I walk or ride my bike for about 2 hours every day, and I have never been fitter, nor more poetical.

So, hell, there might be something in Hugh’s point after all.



------------------
Mark Allinson

This is one of the reasons I love coming here. I needed the laughs this kind of thread supplies! Better than Tension Tamer tea! Thanks, folks!

Patti

P.S. to Michael: Yes! :)

Hi, Hugh. Try it. There’s nothing like driving to get the wheels turning. Go slow in the fast lane and you’ll find yourself rhyming with cars in the slow lane. Behind you there may be the odd person driving like a villan, but what the elle? To find meter, park downtown. Just make sure you’re in the right gear for poetry - a black polo-neck and beret will do.

John

You ain't done nature properly before you've heard the flowers and smeled the birds, I say.

I think thats actually been tested scientifically (if my memory serves me right). IQ type problems are solved better while standing than while sitting. 10-15 points difference, I think. I'm sure there's a Mensa member out there with accurate numbers and a link.

That's an invitation, isn't it? An invitation to remind you that you prefer to crawl in tunnels and that you - by your own poetic admission - have been driving in one. Hm. Does the starting point of this whole discussion imply that poems (in the first person) about driving are second-rate poems? Hmmmm, Janet.

Now I'm waiting for your triplicate revenge. *grin*

Please say yes! That would be my straw to hang on to for poetic greatness. I once managed to ride my bike straight into a parked car that appeared -like- out of nowhere!


------------------
Svein Olav (The poet formerly known as Solan )

Svein said:
"You ain't done nature properly before you've heard the flowers and smeled the birds, I say."

Quite right and I did and have.


quote Svein quoting Janet:
"Any nasty cracks about my poetry will be remembered and repaid in triplicate ;)"

Wotchit.

Svein said:"That's an invitation, isn't it? An invitation to remind you that you prefer to crawl in tunnels and that you - by your own poetic admission - have been driving in one. Hm. Does the starting point of this whole discussion imply that poems (in the first person) about driving are second-rate poems? Hmmmm, Janet."

No no Svein. Poems about driving can be sublime. Rhina has written a superb driving poem. But it's about life and passion really.

Rachmaninov on the Mass Pike
Svein,
If you don't learn to ride a bicycle you are cut out of the joys of the sculpture garden of the Kroller-muller and the Dubbo Western Plains Zoo in New South Wales, Australia.

Janet

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited October 04, 2005).]

Here's Philip Larkin on the joys of driving:

"My car burnt itself out last week, I mean some jolly short-circuit filled it with a nauseating stench as if a heap of old-fashioned used french letters had been conflagrated inside it. Cost £58 to put right: 'you're lucky to be alive, sir'. Chap also gave me a list of other things wrong he'd noticed, like the brakes. If you ever feel life's a BIT TOO SAFE AND UNADVENTUROUS, or that you've GOT TOO MUCH MONEY, just you become a knight of the road."

Oh I'd love to "smele" a bird? How does one begin? Are there books on it?