PORT ANGELES — You open the book, maybe thinking it’ll be a bunch of hard-to-understand poems.
Not for long, though, because in poem No. 1 you’re zooming down the highway, faster and faster, in a vintage black convertible.
This is “Driving One Hundred,” the title piece in Barbara Drake’s latest book on Windfall Press of Portland, Ore., and one of the works she’ll share during her appearance Tuesday in the Little Theater at Peninsula College, 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
Admission is free to her 12:35 p.m. poetry reading and discussion, which is part of the college’s Foothills Writers Series.
“One Hundred” puts the reader in that car:
“Sarah’s boyfriend’s car … and she, wishing to try on speed,
drove fast, fast, faster,
pushing the speedometer to sixty,
seventy, eighty as we screamed
and laughed and held ourselves down …
Our hair in the wind lashed us
like something breaking over a waterfall,
and afraid our young meat and bones
would be scattered,
we screamed at Sarah, slow down slow down,
Sarah, and then she did ninety …
and pushed the pedal down and held it … until the needle stood at one hundred …”
Sarah relents after a bit, and the poem sails into its end:
And our flesh settled down to go on living
as we secretly thanked her, like a goddess,
for the terrible experience.”
That’s a true story, Drake said in an interview last week. It’s about those experiences you knew weren’t a good idea at the time, but that make you feel grateful to have made it through.
Driving One Hundred also includes many examples of Drake’s humor, such as “The Amazing 71-Year-Old Husband,” about a hardworking spouse, and “Cat on Eggs,” about a barn cat who’s taken to sitting on Drake’s chickens’ eggs.
Alice Derry, a poet and friend of Drake’s who lives in Port Angeles, enjoys the way Drake turns everyday things into poetry, often with humor.
Drake, for her part, wants to provide easy access to her poetry. “I’m not obscure,” she added. On Tuesday, “I think I can promise an entertaining hour,” that might even inspire listeners to write their own poetry.
A poem, for Drake, is a conversation between people that transcends time and place.
“I hope hearing me read will also encourage people to be part of the conversation, if not by writing, then simply by a meeting of minds.”
Drake, 71, taught full time at Linfield College in McMinnville, Ore., until she was 68, and still offers the occasional class.
If you come on Tuesday, you won’t feel “talked down to from the ivory tower,” said Derry. “Her subjects remind us of our own daily lives, and they show how we must continue to examine them.”
Those who listen to this poetry, Derry added, “will never be bored or lost or left behind. Barbara speaks from the heart, and their own hearts will respond.”
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
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