Poem of the Day: “The Seated Race” by Anders Ward

Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is pleased to present “The Seated Race” by Anders Ward.  Mr. Ward, a life-long Californian, is a student at the University of California at Santa Cruz where he is majoring in Literature.  He aspires to be a fiction writer, and his favorite poets include:  Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, Allen Ginsberg, WH Auden, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson.  In his spare time, he enjoys taking hikes, reading, writing, watching movies, listening to vinyl music, and playing basketball.

The Seated Race

Anders Ward

 

Filling up with a vacuum,

Eyes searching like spotlights pretending

To happen upon other lily-pad-ponds.

         Heart it races

         Toward a future filled with synchronized

         Footfalls on September leaves.

         Lips licking teeth imagining wooden words.

                  Throat dry

                  Hair messy

                  Clothes tight.

                           Ease into speaking -- 

                                    like newly-loosened tie

Poet’s Notes:  This poem is originally inspired by the song "Heart it Races" (I prefer the version played by Dr Dog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW_4_rBHj20).  My favorite thing to do in poetry is connect naturally unconnected things; in this poem I attempted to do so by explaining an experience through disconnected images to lend a deeper tone and greater set of implications for the reader.

I used the structure of advancing the lines to increase the intensity of the poem.  By indenting the lines gradually, they read faster.  By the end of the poem, the lines are so indented that the poem seems to be running out of space, creating the feeling that each line is gradually more aware of its mortality.

Editor’s Note:  There is something Salvador Dali about this poem that I like--a creative mix of the real and surreal, pleasantly non sequitur.