Part One — Car Poetry
This week’s Poetry Thursday assignment was to be inspired by a single line from another blogger’s poem. I picked “A Morning By the Sea” by Susannah of Ink on My Fingers.
The line that inspired me was:
The computer hums,
the kettle rumbles.
Why this line? Her poem is wonderful, filled with wonderful images. This is probably — content-wise — one of the least important lines. But that’s exactly what inspired me about it. Its importance is more than just the content, or the onomatopoeia of “hum” and “rumble.” I like the way the line rolls off your tongue, like a good song lyric.
The computer hums,
the kettle rumbles.
I think one reason I find it poetry difficult is because I’m always focusing on the “meaning” of the words. Poetry, more than fiction, is about the music of the words themselves.
I have a comedian friend who is always rewriting his material to make it funnier by using “funnier” words. These are words that start with a “hard” letter. So, a “Crazy Cat” is theoretically funnier than a “Weird Worm.” It’s his own way of using the “poetry” of words to enhance his routine. In a way, Susannah’s poem helped me to remember my love of words — words for their own sake.
In my ideal world, Elliot Yamin would have won “American Idol,” not because he has the best voice, or a doting Jewish mother, but because he has the coolest sounding name.
Elliot Yamin.
Taylor Hicks? Not poetry.
As I was driving on the 10 Freeway today, I thought about how much the big auto companies must spend to come up with their “poetic” sounding names for their cars.
I wonder if they hire poets.
Chevrolet Cabriolet
Toyota Corolla
Ford Focus
Hyundai Santa Fe
Mercedes
Rolls Royce
I like the way all of these car names “sound.”
I’m driving on the freeway
In my Hyundai Santa Fe
Zooming past a Corolla
and a Chevy CabrioletI know my car ain’t a Mercedes
Or a beautiful Rolls Royce
But it’s better than that Ford Focus
Now that was one BAD choice.
I know, I know. A fourth grade poem. But it was fun.
Part Two — Overheard in LA
As most people know, Los Angeles is a driving town. What you drive matters. Since I first met Sophia, she’s had four completely different types of cars — each one evoking a wildly different negative response from some other driver.Â
1) 1996 —
As we entered the parking lot of Campanile Restaurant, an upscale restaurant, a friend told Sophia, who was driving a five year old Honda Accord:
“I’d be embarrassed to give this piece of junk into the valet.”
2) 1999 —
After a motorcycle cut us off in Beverly Hills, Sophia blinked her lights at him.  The motorcyclist turned to Sophia, who was now leasing a Infiniti i30, and yelled:
“Screw you, you rich bitch!”
3) 2001 —
As we left a coffee shop in Redondo Beach, an environmental activist was putting a flyer on a windshield of Sophia’s new Hyundai Santa Fe SUV:
“Do you morons know what you’re doing to the environment with this monstrosity?”
4) 2006 —
As (Republican) Sophia pulled away from an IHOP, after having breakfast with me, in her new Toyota Prius Hybrid, I heard two men talking about the special DMV stickers that allow some hybrid owners to drive alone in the carpool lane:
“What gives these liberal treehugging assholes the right to use the carpool lane when we can’t?!”
Moral of the story:Â You can’t win driving in LA.
A Year Ago on Citizen of the Month: 90 Million Women Wear Wrong Size Bra
