Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
I began writing these poems in the fall of 2017 after starting a new job in downtown Portland, Oregon. I usually take the MAX train to work. The Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) is a three county, color-coded rail transportation system serving the Portland area and operated by TriMet. Orange is my MAX line and it takes about twenty minutes on a good day to reach my destination. The cars are often packed with Clack County residents, Reedites, the medical herd heading toward OHSU, PSU students, city bureaucrats, and a mix of others like me. I quickly realized that this diverse array of humanity, with its moods and behaviors, was waiting for me to witness and record in my small black unlined notebook with a ballpoint pen. It was my commuting Garden of Earthly Delights.The banquet kept unfolding, revealing itself, ride after ride, stop after stop, who came in, who went out. I could not help writing down what I saw, heard, smelled, felt, and imagined. It seemed the mornings were more bountiful than the afternoons--but not always. I wonder if you'll be able to tell what time of day a specific poem was written?And then there was the outside--morphing tag posts, gazing goddess murals, trickster crows and purposeful gulls, zipping bikes, homeless compounds, and railroad crossing stuck cars. I saw it all.I sure got my money's worth A ticket to ride revealed a kaleidoscopic universe of committed commuters peppered with Portlandia possibilities. Please hold on...