First Annual Festival of Women's Poetry *********************November 2008********************* - First Trip Through the Automatic... by M. Van Duyn

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First Annual Festival of Women's Poetry *********************November 2008********************* :: *Poem-a-day :: Wompo's favourite poems collected by Georgia Banks-Martin :: First Trip Through the Automatic... by M. Van Duyn

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Topic: First Trip Through the Automatic... by M. Van Duyn (Read 602 times)

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First Trip Through the Automatic... by M. Van Duyn
« Thread Started on Nov 30, 2008, 1:51am »

First Trip Through the Automatic Car Wash
by Mona Van Duyn

submitted by Kate Bernadette Benedict

I love poems that mine ordinary experience for deep ore and this one by Mona Van Duyn (1921-2004) is a stunning example of that strategy. The descriptions alone haul a reader right into the experience of a trip to the car wash: the scrubbing apparatuses first conjure up a personal typhoon and then a personal scourging. These vivid observations lead to philosophical musings as the speaker ponders the destruction of the "customary," of what she "is and has been," of the meaning of words and words themselves. As the car finally emerges, she too emerges, back to a daylight world which, however bright with clarity, also presents confusion. One surmises that the speaker, having had her sensibilities jarred by the car wash, is newly attuned to the "the muddle of everywhere."

It is a testament to this poem's achievement that the reader is changed as well. The poem does not just describe an experience, it is an experience; we are inside that car as it moves through the stages of its purification and inside that mind as it passes through its stages of wonderment and assault. At the end, we feel our own hearts jog; we hear that funny little "hoot from behind" that breaks the spell and returns us to our own patch of reality. Some masterful poems hold the reader at a distance; others, like "First Trip Through the Automatic Car Wash," put no obstacle between writer and reader. It is that type of poem one returns to again and again.

Read First Trip Through the Automatic Car Wash by Mona Van Duyn and several other selections by the poet at:
http://katebenedict.com/lectio/vanduyn.html

More information about the poet may be found at:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/169

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