[Terese Coe]

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



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

[Ethan Anderson]

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...

[Carol Taylor]

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

Carol

[Mark Allinson]

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

[Patti McCarty]

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!

[John Beaton]

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

[Svein Olav Nyberg]

Originally posted by Janet Kenny:
I rode a bicycle all my New Zealand childhood and adolescence. Bicycles are wonderful because you can smell the flowers and hear the birds.

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

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.

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.

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

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*

Originally posted by Chris Childers:
What about poets who can't ride a bike? Have they made their way into conventional wisdom yet?

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!


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Svein Olav (The poet formerly known as Solan )

[Janet Kenny]

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).]

[Hugh McMillan]

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."

[Mark Granier]

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

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