Motorway Poems
Thinking about the nature of democracy and democratic institutions, there is an argument that the two most democratic institutions in a ‘developed’ country are the telephone network and the road network. Anyone with 20p has access to the telephone network and it is essentially the same network used by everyone, regardless of wealth and social status. Unless you are housebound everyone has access to the road network, whether by car, bike or foot. Or to put it another way, anyone who wants to can get from any point in the country to any other point in the country can do, at any time that they choose.
What interests me are the exceptions, which for the road network is toll roads (though generally you don’t pay a toll on foot or bike) and motorways.
With motorways there are several things:
They are part of and not part of the democratic institution, they exclude pedestrians and cyclists.
They create a kind of vacuum when you’re travelling on them in which the rest of the country disappears.
Whilst you’re on them only your destination seems to matter.
They seem sterile when in fact they’re not, because the country that has disappeared keeps intruding.
In a sense they become the site of conflict between democratic and undemocratic values: everyone going in the same direction, everyone following the same rules, everyone isolated and in their own privatised worlds. The mode of transport, the thing being transported, and the status of the transport tend towards elision. Equality through conformity.
As an initial exploration I thought it would be interesting to write some motorway poems. Two so far, others (hopefully) to follow. Anyway, here they are.
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motorway 5 p.m.
the setting sun and a kite wheeling over the road.
i keep thinking there must be a rubbish dump
somewhere nearby.
then i think this would make the perfect photograph,
power lines and the elegant black ghost of a kite
and ten miles of traffic. and the average speed cameras
with their yellow stems, bobbing like daffodils. and
the overturned car by itself on the hard shoulder, blue lights
mirroring the road fast behind me.
***
motorway verge
it looks like a fox cub, not survived its first winter;
body and tail still intact, just the head missing.
two sculpture crows on the fence, feigning they’re made
from black ice. nothing happened. foreign artics
panting as they gundog the hill.
Comments
motorway poems
first of Mr Mello 20p will not get you anywhere on the phone lines - minimum they accept nowadays is 40 or 50p. that's if you can find one that works especially in run down areas.
not sure if i agree with your interpretation of the road network as a metaphor for democracy. all the reason you give that contradict kinda contradict the argument for me.
really liked the Ist motorway poem, think maybe you don't need the line ' with their yellow stems' or the 'yellow' in there. since daffodils only come in one predominat colour. although there may be some types we've interefered genetically with that i don't know about..
2nd one mmmm....loved the 3rd line but what are 'foriegn artics' and what does 'gundog the hill' mean?
Yvonne
Yellow Yvonne
Hiya.
Yeah, 20p, you're right about that. Though in my defence it was 20p last time i used a payphone. Admittedly that was in Cornwall.
With respect to payphones in run down areas; plenty round my way, Levenshulme, Gorton, Longsight. Work fine, not much vandalism, frequently queues to use the popular ones.
I'm not using the road network as a metaphor for democracy. The road network is in fact an institution, in the way that marriage is an institution. Among the definitions of institution one finds:
Collective, regularized solution to a problem of social life.
A significant practice, relationship, or organization in a society.
So given that the road network is an institution it is arguable that it is fundamentally democratic because everyone has access to it and everyone is able to use it for its purpose whenever they choose. As such the road network is a part of democracy not a metaphor for it.
My interest in motorways is in the fact that they in several important senses aren’t democratic in the way that the rest of the road network is; everyone going in the same direction, etc. On the normal road network if the mode of transport changes the rules change, and if you’re on foot there are no rules, except perhaps that you don’t walk in the middle of a busy road, but that’s more self preservation than a hard and fast rule. Motorways don’t admit of these alternatives, so they are in a sense authoritarian and conformist in a way that other roads are not. The nature of motorways seems to me to reflect in part the nature of the democracy they are a fundamental part of.
With respect to the poems themselves, daffodils don’t have yellow stems, they have green stems. And average speed cameras don’t bob.
Artics is short for articulated lorries. Gundog the hill is used to establish an association with hunting, which brings us back to the fox (though strictly speaking foxes are, or were, hunted with hounds).
If I can provide any further assistance please don't hesitate to contact me at the above address. I must also warn you that the value of your investment in the current economic climate can go down as well as downer.
They wont let us have our minds to ourselves!
And even on the motorways there are billboards tryna tell you what to like, hate, worship, buy!