Poetry in Motion: Taking It on the Road

Julia Cameron calls them "artists dates." I call them "risk adventures." Call them what you will, but these forays into the unknown broaden our sense of the planet, allow us to taste a life we did not choose to live, and give us a new-found self confidence about our right to be anywhere, everywhere in the world. Not to mention all the new material we can collect. Adventuring with a sense of awareness can provide us new opportunities for self-expression and a certain respect for our earthly neighbors.

I've been away on a poetry journey; a 3-week long writer's retreat of sorts. Writers simply must retreat once in awhile from the head lines, the front lines, the hard lines and laze around in a soft bed with nothing to write but what brings them joy. I covered several states in my journey, slowly making my way through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Western North Carolina, and ALL of the extremely long state of Tennessee. My state of mind varied as much as the states through which I drove and the weather. I ran from tornados, swam in the sun, hid from thunderstorms, wore both jackets and shorts along the way. And I wrote about all of it.

Sometimes, there's nothing better than a decent motel room in a distant town where you know no one and nobody knows you. There you can let your curiosity roam well beyond the confines of the big, boring (but safe) building with its giant TV, WiFi, and exercise room to wander the streets of the town in which you've arrived. One of the towns I explored enroute to a reading in Atlanta was Holly Springs, MS. I wasn't even staying there, but it was the first sunshine I'd seen in days, and that was enough to tempt me off the beaten path.

In the town square of Holly Springs, I walked around the old courthouse studying the historical markers which told of the area's involvement in the "War of Northern Aggression." I am still fascinated by that period in the history of this nation and the Southerner's point of view, both black and white, of what occurred before, during and after that devastating civil war. I'll stop on the side of any highway to read an historical marker anyway, and here they all were within walking distance. Holly Springs is a trip back in time, not so far as the civil war, but at least to the 1940's or 50's.

I ate at a restaurant called "Aunt Whooeys" on the square which served me a dessert called "apple enchilada." It was several apple dumplings rolled long and baked in a pan with a syrup of butter, sugar and cinnamon poured over it. Heated, with a perfect round of vanilla ice cream melting over it--what can I say? The word orgasmic may seem crude, but it is close to my actual experience of this homemade delight. And I think it cost all of $2.75. That alone was worth the 3-mile drive from the interstate to the town center.

After lunch, I walked around the square and went into an ancient drugstore with a real soda fountain and soda jerk working hard to serve a long line awaiting the cold, creamy treats. Even with a belly full of apple enchilada I was tempted to try one of the icy confections the customers held in their hot little hands. I did buy a postcard of the town there, then wandered back to the historical post office to mail it to Leigh. I am in love with old P.O.'s in all their different settings and would search high and low for something to mail just so I could get it postmarked there. I did all this on my lunch break with miles to drive before I reached my overnight destination of Jasper, AL.

This was the beginning of my trip and I tell you about it, creative reader, to remind you that the journey from one place to another never need be a straight line. Human beings, as a rule, are in too much of a hurry to get where they think they are going. I believe the road should not be straight and narrow, no matter what the Bible says. In fact, it should be as wildly adventurous and as full of nectar as a bee's flight. At nearly every exit, around the next bend in the road, two easy miles from your boring hotel, adventure awaits. Go! Be free! But don't forget your pen and paper. Or your camera...

(Photo 1 source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/courthouselover/2351780036/. Photo 2 source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holly_Springs,_Mississippi)

—Mendy Knott is a writer, poet and author of the poetry collection A Little Lazarus (Half Acre Press, 2010). To order your copy of A Little Lazarus directly from the author, please click here. Or, if cookbooks are more your style, get a copy of Mendy's family cookbook Across the Arklatex at www.twopoets.us.