Poetry While Driving

What are you listening to while you drive? There are longdrives ahead of many of us this holiday season as we retreat to our quarantinedens and visit the family that we can. Even during a short drive, everyoneI know is listening to something in the car: radio, podcasts, music from theirphones, CDs. So why not poetry? 

I have a 2011 Subaru Outback with a CD player and noBluetooth. On my last drive, from Durham, NH to Ithaca, NY, I listened to RitaDove and Rosanna Warren, then Lucille Clifton and Gwendolyn Brooks recordedlive on CD. Brooks and Dove are fabulous readers. I love how when I amlistening, I can’t rush. When I am in the car, while I am going somewhere, I also can’t go anywhere from where I am sitting.It feels like the perfect intersection of states of mind to absorb audio.Listening to Dove, I was often jolted into understanding of tone and delivery—moreimmediate than if I was reading.

It was a huge discovery for me when I found the poetrycollection in my local library’s CD collection—The Academy of American PoetsAudio Archive, which is a series of live recordings spanning from roughly1960-1995. Sometimes, you can hear ambient noise, applause or comments from theaudience in the background. Some other favorite recordings in this seriesinclude Phillip Levine, Stanley Kunitz and Louise Glück. 

Driving, especially long distances, is my surprise time to listen to poetry. I rarely listen to poetry except during a live reading. Usually, I read it in silence. Many of us, especially those of us who do not come from a spoken word background, have a primarily visual experience of poetry when we read it on a page. Listening to a live recording (and for me, while in transit) is a way to change your experience of poetry and broaden your own knowledge of poets—their work and how they read. Check your local libraries for similar collections, or online for live poetry recordings! In my car, listening to Dove, (while, of course, focusing on the road!) kept me moving for miles.  

Eve Glasergreen is the poetry editor of Barnstorm. She is a second-year MFA student at the University of New Hampshire. Follow her on Instagram @evgreens.