[Ella Shively]

Hi all! This is an ekphrastic poem based on the following image:
https://www.rattle.com/ekphrastic/

American Bicyclists (working title)

all summer long, we ruled the margins of the road, from the slick white line of paint to the nebulous borders of the cornfields. mile upon mile we rode, brakes squealing, spokes whirring, palms merging with oozy, black handlebars. we skidded onto dusty shoulders, our bicycles falling from our bodies like feathers, rear wheels still spinning as gravel crunched like the crushed exoskeletons of cicadas beneath our feet. we gorged ourselves on fume-soaked blackberries as we supervised the cars and their engulfed companions, who thought the whole yellow-striped world was theirs to own. we slipped a dollar bill into a flat tire, as an offering to the roadside gods. these gods could be seen from a distance, wavering in the heat, long-haired and paunchy, bare feet star-spangled with scrapes. in those days, there were things you could not buy or sell, least of all the red sun throbbing like a heart at the end of the pavement.

I’ve been thinking of replacing the “we” with a singular “she.” I also haven’t decided yet whether to keep it as a prose poem or add line breaks. Here’s the alternative:

American Bicyclists

all summer long, we ruled the margins of the road,
from the slick white line of paint
to the nebulous borders of the cornfields.
mile upon mile we rode, brakes squealing,
spokes whirring, palms merging with oozy, black handlebars.
we skidded onto dusty shoulders,
our bicycles falling from our bodies like feathers,
rear wheels still spinning as gravel crunched like
the crushed exoskeletons of cicadas beneath our feet.
we gorged ourselves on fume-soaked blackberries
as we supervised the cars and their engulfed companions,
who thought the whole yellow-striped world was theirs to own.
we slipped a dollar bill into a flat tire,
as an offering to the roadside gods.
these gods could be seen from a distance,
wavering in the heat, long-haired and paunchy,
bare feet star-spangled with scrapes.
in those days, there were things you could not buy or sell,
least of all the red sun throbbing like a heart
at the end of the pavement.

[John Boddie]

Ella -

As a long-time collector of road rash, I was unable to visualize your phrase, "our bicycles falling from our bodies like feathers." When I went down, the bike always seemed to wrench itself from my weight and my grip, as if it was escaping from my control (which it was). Falling while riding a bike is quick and violent in a way no falling feather could ever be.

JB

[Matt Q]

Hi Ella,

I like this. I get the sense of young people, adolescents or young adults with no responsibilities going off on their bikes, roaming far and wide in the endless days of summer. There's a slow, hazy vibe to the poem which seems to fit the content well.

In my experience, if you write a prose poem, it rarely works to simply insert line-breaks and call it a lineated poem. If the poem's not been written with the line in mind, it tends to show, as, for me, it does here in your lineated version. (I also tend to find the reverse is true, too). I'd stick with the prose poem. Or rewrite it as a lineated poem rather than just chop it up -- but I don't see that you need to. The prose poem works for me.

I prefer "we" over "she". Something about the idea of the cyclists having company. I imagined a small group of school/college friends. It's a different mood if she goes off alone, I think. Plus, less personal -- less intimate -- with "she" than with "we".

You've opted out of capital letters but kept all other punctuation What do you think it adds here, other than making the poem slightly harder to read? -- though to be fair, the Sphere's not the best place to read prose poems, no line-spacing, and very long lines; it may be fine on the page. I guess you could make a case for it adding a certain drifting, summer haze effect.

I reckon there might be something fresher than the somewhat tired/cliché "mile upon mile".

I'm with Michael on bicycles not falling like feathers when you fall off them. But I wonder if you intend the cyclists fall. Maybe they skid to a halt and leap off their bikes and just let them fall where they are, wheels still spinning. But if that's what you intend it could maybe be clearer.

You might consider changing "these gods could be" to "who could be" and losing the full stop.

I'm not sure where the flat tire is, and whether it's a car tyre or a bike tyre, and whether or not it's attached to anything. I wondered if maybe the dollar bill was being used to repair a puncture. I think need a bit more to be able to picture what's going on here.

I'm not quite sure what it means for the cyclists to supervise the cars and drivers. It's an interesting-sounding idea, a sort of power-reversal, I just don't quite get what's happening and could maybe do with a touch more information. In what sense are they supervising? What are they doing or thinking that distinguishes this from simply watching the cars? Or is that what they're doing?

More generally, to me, the poem feels a little over-modified in places. Since that's a cumulative effect, it's hard to point to any particular place, but you could try stripping the modifiers back a bit and see how it reads.

So, as an ekphrastic ... Well, that's a challenging image to work from, I think. The connections I see are that the image has yellow lines and so do roads. The black looks like tarmac / road surface. And the red bit does look like part of a heart. You could maybe go further with the image. I wonder if there's a way to reference the partially hidden / occluded text that's under the white paint - can you make some reference to partially hidden words/text/conversations? Also, I wondered if maybe the numbers under the white paint are logarithm tables -- maybe there's some way to reference logarithms, or tables of numbers, relating it to distance somehow?

Anyway, the poem works on its own, independently of the picture, which is a good thing.

Best,

Matt

[John Riley]

I am always wrestling with if I'm writing a prose poem or a lineated poem. What is usually different in a prose poem, I think, is more imagination than you see in most lineated poems. Actually, there should be some pushback to prose poems being primarily wild leaps of imagination while often ignoring any notion of theme or development. It's like free jazz, which I admire and value but don't think should be exclusive. What you give up writing prose poems is using syntax, which is maybe the sharpest tool you have writing non-met poetry. Syntax is rhythm and I find it difficult to give it up. At this point, I'm writing poems that feel like prose poems in terms of the narrative and unexpectedness, but I am not willing to give up syntax most of the time as of now. Maybe that's where I should be.

Sorry to go on about me but I find it relevant to your question. I lean toward your lineated for the reasons I've mentioned. One caveat is the Sphere's long lines undercut a prose poem's effect, so factor that in but regardless I still prefer the lineated.

I have nothing specific to add to Matt's thorough comment.

[Ella Shively]

Hi all,

Thanks so much for your fantastic comments! Matt, I really appreciate your thoroughness. I've taken them to heart and done some editing, but I'm not quite ready to post version 2 yet. Hopefully over the weekend I'll finish up.

Cheers,

Ella

[Jim Moonan]

.
Hi Ella, (FYI, When I first read the poem a couple of days ago the linked image was different from what I see now. Unless I'm going crazy (((In which case never mind!))))

I like "we" and I like the lineated version.

I think the first line would glide better without the comma after "long".

I especially like the visceral parts of the poem — the parts where I can feel/hear the mechanics of the bike as it interacts with the cyclist. Like Matt, I found the feather image of a bike tumbling out from under its rider to be off. Unless you are going for that moment in times of trauma when things slow down and sound is turned off as if the senses have taken control of the experience.

It might be a worthwhile exercise to work on shortening this. I think a tighter version might be interesting. As an ekphrastic, I think making adjustments would echo/compliment the abstract, angular painting that I remember it reflecting a few days ago. ((( but I could be going crazy!)))

Ella, I remember reading other poems of yours that take place outdoors and that you are an environmentalist/wildlife technician by profession, so it makes sense that your poetry is at home in nature. But you also leave the door open for the reader to step inside and experience your interior poetic thoughts about the outside world. In a way, it is the opposite of most poets, I think, who see the outside world through an open window, and invite the reader to experience the poem as perceived being imagined from it the confines of their inner self, if that makes any sense (((But I could be going...)))

.

[Lavinia Kumar]

I like the lineated version, minus an 'as' and 'the' here and there, and 'like' at the end of a line.

The lineated version gives a good feel to a teen's scattered ways on a bike trip, as well as the freedom. I definitely agree with the comment that falling from a bike is far from a feather-like experience. Most often it is painful, and the bike quite often topples on top of one – so most unpleasant.