Drive, They Said: Poems about Americans and Their Cars

What icon better defines America's experiences, dreams, foibles, escapes, and obsessions than the automobile? And what experience more perfectly captures the American spirit - moving on, westering, wandering - than driving? In this anthology, editor Kurt Brown collects the best of the innumerable poems that have made driving their emblem during the century known as the Automobile Age.Poems from nearly one hundred contemporary writers are gathered in this hommage to America's obsession with the automobile, including Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Bly, Rosellen Brown, Hayden Carruth, Rita Dove, Joy Harjo, and Thomas McGrath. The anthology's sections define driving as "the rolling forward toward the future" for both men and women; the meditative aspects of driving into the self; the experience of stopping by the side of the road as we rush wildly across the map; the crossing of destinies; the allegories of life itself.