h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Road Rage in Los Angeles - A1060192
Author: Shipwrecked - U228619

Note the disclaimer. The poem is merely harmless "venting".

I wonder if that would have been Michael Douglas' defence in 'Falling Down'.

That certainly was venting taken to the extreme, eh? I hesitated to post my little poem lest anyone think I'd be capable of snapping the way Douglas did in that film. No, I'd never let dark impulses overtake me like that. But I think we all have those impulses from time to time. I suppose "civilization" (do I have to spell it with an 's' on the beeb?) is merely the suppression of these urges. My entry is a recognition of how everyone can be driven to frustration by others' actions now and then, but just relishing the idea of extreme reaction can provide relief. It's an antidote to the glorification, in North American culture, of hotheads who act out their anger.

I can sympathise. I often fantasise about buying a tank or similar large armoured vehicle, and simply driving it over and into discourteous, stupid or dangerous drivers. An analyst might perhaps speculate that this is because I normally ride a bicycle to work and feel a little vulnerable sometimes?

Sprout

Yeah, I sometimes have the same fantasy. In fact, years ago I owned a '78 Dodge Ramcharger 4x4 truck. It was ugly and beat up because I actually used it to go 4-wheeling in the bush country. It had big, knobby tires and a massive, steel, platform & rail bumper designed to hold an electric winch. This bumper was almost as big as a cowcatcher on those old locomotives. Anyway, since this was well before SUVs became popular with the commuter crowd, my truck usually dwarfed anything else on the road and I sometimes fantasized about rolling right over idiots who got in my way.... And then one day an absent minded fool in a little Toyota pickup truck cut me off on an icy freeway.... I couldn't avoid hitting him even though I tried! The police agreed that it was his fault and so I got the pleasure of destroying his vehicle while suffering nothing more than a few extra scratches on my bumper! I really miss that old truck....

Thanks for writing this, and thanks for putting it here.

Some time ago I showed some of my poems to a friend, (Deidzoeb, in fact), and he suggested that I either remove the blurb about them, or put it after the poem, on the basis that it distracted from the poem. I don't know whether or not it is good advice, and it was about some very different poetry, but for what it is worth, I report it here.

Cheers

Ben

You're welcome. Nice to know one or two people have actually read it.

I think your friend's advice was generally good, about not distracting from the poem and all. But, in this case, I think my poem is little weak and it benefits from a setup. My stronger pieces would stand alone but they're generally more personal than what I want to post in a public forum. This one was just a throwaway I wrote in a moment of pique.

Shipwrecked

I post my personal poems on Geocities, and then link to them from any conversations that include people who want to read them. (There is also a discrete link from my home page. You might like "Rain on the Road", but then again you might not!

I kinda agree about the set-up, but there seems to be an awful lot of set up for this poem. Lets see what other people think. I'll take another look at it and make some suggestions. Please prod me in a few days if I haven't.

Thanks again for submitting it here. (And I would be very interested in seeing some of your other stuff if you would like to share it.

Ben

I do like "Rain on the Road", it's very evocative. Nice meter, it reads well aloud. (My coworkers are glancing bemusedly my way.) I'll nose around and have a look at the others when I get more time.

I'll see if I have anything else I can post. It's very kind of you to show an interest. I don't write often. Most of my poems are written for (to) one woman or another and I would never dream of showing them to anyone else. They belong to their muses. Most of the rest of my poems are cathartic, pondering the painful things in my life, and are not really for public consumption. But I'll look anyway, to see if there's anything that's not too personal.

Who knows, maybe I'll compose something new. If so, I expect I'll stick to the AWW. I'm too lazy to properly research anything for the edited guide.

Shipwrecked

The other one which reads well out loud is "Appreciation". Oh, and "Elton John and Kiki Dee" is fun too.

I have 'find somewhere I can perform my poems' on my list of things to do. There is a pub in the next town which has open mike nights, and I keep on meaning to phone them.... I only know if they really work by reading them out loud. If you spend too long in there you will discover that almost all of the rest are cathartic or decathectic. (Cool word eh? It means 'moving away from').

I know that feeling of 'can't be bothered to do the research' and it is one of the reasons I don't write for the Edited Guide.

Thanks again for posting 'Road Rage'.

Ben

Hello guys 'n' gals,

just dropping by to say i read this and enjoyed it, . Thanks for sharing it, Shipwrecked, look forward to reading forthcoming entries from you,

Personally, i think the preamble works well as it stands; i too can see the advantage of having poem then blurb, but here i think the rhyme works better with the lead-in.

that's wot i think, anyhoo

and i liked the 'carpuscles', too

cya
spiff

Hello all,

I have to disagree about the preamble, I think the poem is strong enough to stand on it's own. The rhythm is good. Perhaps expand it to get more of the feeling of the rage building.

One minor nitpick is the line Leaving me no room to follow
the rhythm of that line doesn't flow with the rest of the piece. Perhaps leaves instead of leaving.


Thanks for putting this up

KJ

Thanks, Spiff. (And yeah, I think "carpuscles" is a cool invention.)

Kiltedjedi, I agree that line doesn't flow well. I rewrote the whole stanza before adding the poem to this entry but it still doesn't sound right. Probably because each line ends on a one-syllable word except for that offending line. It sounds better when you put the stress on "me", as I do when I read it aloud.

As for the preamble, it was actually the raison d'etre of the entry. If I get rid of it then the poem becomes generic to any city. I wrote the entry to discuss my impression of driving in Los Angeles. I wanted to impart the unique dichotomy of a city where the crush of traffic inspires road rage but the omnipresence of violent, gun-toting hotheads leads to circumspection. The poem was only meant to be an exclamation mark to the entry.

I'll see if I can't expand the poem to include that concept. Check back in a week or two and maybe the poem will stand alone by then.

Shipwrecked

Hi again shipwrecked.

I would suggest then that you drop some images in the poem to make the poem site specific. I would stand by the fact that a poem shouldn't have a preamble, and I don't believe this one does. It should be a snapshot of a feeling/moment/image that you bring to life through words, (well that's my anyway)

I would suggest that rather having the poem as the exclamation mark, have it as the entry, as I think you have enough power there to have something really good.

But then that's only my opinion so please don't take it the wrong way (visions of gun toting Rageaholic coming up and saying 'what you saying about my blurb to my poem?' )

KJ

Ha Ha! Fear not, Kiltedjedi, I haven't lived in the U.S. long enough to be assimilated by the culture of violence! Your suggestions are appreciated. They echo those of other miners, too. (It seems that preambles are considered prosaic by lovers of verse!) I'll have a whack at it (the poem, not the critics!) and try to expand it to convey my theme on its own. But not today. I'm working on a Sunday because I've spent too much time goofing off on the internet this last week.....

Shipwrecked

Hi Shipwrecked, I've noticed this and I'd like to use it for an issue of the CAC-Continuum, which is an effort to promote pieces like yours. You can see the issue in progress at A2201897.

If you have some objections, holler at me and I'll try to resolve them.

No problem, Jodan, feel free to use it. I was actually going to rewrite it per the suggestions of the other people in this thread but I just never got around to it.... So I guess it runs as is!

It looks like the poem has gone, so Back to Entry.

<BB<

Seconded