Yup, and it's the actual driver who's got his eye on the road.
Interesting to see the poem as two voices in one head, let's say
inspiration, even afflatus, and craft. Tho not limited to poetry, of
course. And the two voices, whatever the moment of the poem's making,
are certainly in Creeley's head--he's incorporated his friend.
Mark
At 09:53 AM 3/29/2006, you wrote:
>It's not uncommon in this part of the world for people to address the
>driver of, e.g. a bus, as "drive" - as in saying "cheers, drive!" when
>getting off the bus. So it's also possible to read the "drive" in the
>last section in the vocative.
>
>It's intuitive to take the break between the sections as indicating a
>shift in speaker; but I guess another way to hear the break is as an
>unvoiced "y'know, really..." - the first speaker is getting carried
>away, imagining what it might be like to "buy a goddamn big
>car...y'know, really...*drive*", maybe taking his hands off the wheel
>and waving them around to indicate the expansiveness of the concept.
>At which point "John" interrupts...
>
>Dominic
>
>On 3/29/06, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > I Know a Man
> >
> > As I sd to my
> > friend, because I am
> > always talking, -- John, I
> >
> > sd, which was not his
> > name, the darkness sur-
> > rounds us, what
> >
> > can we do against
> > it, or else, shall we &
> > why not, buy a goddamn big car,
> >
> > drive, he sd, for
> > christ's sake, look
> > out where yr going.
> >
> >
> >
> > Note: Creeley found it amusing that his one poem that made it beyond
> > the realm of poetry readers and students into the realm of pop
> > culture is usually misread, as in the film title. He claimed that the
> > I of the poem says the word "drive," the rest is John's. Makes it a
> > more interesting poem (tho far from my favorite of Creeley's), but
> > hard to imagine how even a pretty good reader would get this.
> >
>
>
>--
>Shall we be pure or impure? Today
>we shall be very pure. It must always
>be possible to contain
>impurities in a pure way.
>--Tarmo Uustalu and Varmo Vene
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