Listen to poetry professor Stephen Cavitt read “Middle Aged White Man Drives West” and discuss implied backstory in poetry.
Stephen’s poetry collection Noctis Terrores is available now on Kindle Unlimited and in print at major online booksellers.
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Read the transcript below.
Intro
Welcome to the Poetry Professor Podcast with Stephen Cavitt, where every week I read you an original poem and and then we talk about its key technique.
In today’s episode, you’ll hear “Middle Aged White Man Drives West”, definitely not autobiographical, from my book Noctis Terrores, and we’ll talk about implied backstory.
Middle Aged White Man Drives West
Down the long grade to Ouray, Colorado, rain peppers the windshield,
and the red mountains sigh in the dark. In the bottom land, black cows chew
whatever grass they can find among the wet sage. The hound circles nervously
in the front seat. For the first time, there’s nowhere I’d rather be. Midnight
in Caitlin’s bed, laughing and holding hands. Laney’s nose ring shining
like a small blue star. They’re gone, and every chance I had to work in the woods
and wake to bird song, and still there’s been so much Earth. Orion every fall,
the moon slow and cold over the tractor in the backyard. The bearings
in the rear differential grind and turn. The vibrations travel up the driveshaft
into my spine. The old dog pants and circles. I got everything I asked for.
I just didn’t keep it. Jeff Buckley’s on the radio: And every breath we took
was hallelujah. He’s right, and the lightning knows it. Its brilliant fingers
hold onto the earth for as long as they can.
Discuss:
Let’s talk about implied backstory. It’s such an important technique in this collection, Noctis Terrores. We’ll talk about it in a few different episodes.
One of the things I work with my students on is picking representative moments, these quick, precise details that can stand in for a longer backstory or a longer personal history. It’s especially useful if you’re talking about the past or you’re making a list and you want to be precise but you don’t want to take up the whole poem with it.
So midway through this poem, we’ve got our first representative list: “Midnight in Caitlin’s bed, laughing and holding hands. Lainey’s nose ring shining like a small blue star. They’re gone, and every chance I had to work in the woods and wake to birdsong, and still there’s been so much earth. Orion every fall, the moon slow and cold over the tractor in the backyard.”
This guy has more memories with Caitlin than just laughing and holding hands. He remembers more about Lainey than just her nose ring. He’s got more moments on the farm than just the moon over the tractor. But these are snapshots. They create an implied backstory. It’s kind of like the montage scene from a movie, where Rocky’s training for the fight or the romantic lead is trying on prom dresses or whatever. It’s a handful of Polaroids spilled out on a desk.
The key to this implied backstory is that the moments are precise. If you just say, All the women I loved are gone, nobody cares. They need to see it. But at the same time, you don’t have to list every single thing that happened in those relationships or in that farm because it’s a poem, not a novel.
So you pick a few tiny instants that stand in for the whole, and then we’re back again to this longer description of the present moment in the vehicle: “The bearings in the rear differential grind and turn. The vibrations travel up the driveshaft into my spine. The old dog pants and circles. I got everything I asked for. I just didn’t keep it. Jeff Buckley’s on the radio: And every breath we took was hallelujah. He’s right, and the lightning knows it. Its brilliant fingers hold on to the earth for as long as they can.”
So those short, precise details in our list are kind of like a boxer’s jab. They set up the important statement, the real punch, about our speaker asking for everything but not keeping it. They give us just enough implied backstory to tell us who this guy is, but they don’t belabor the points.
Let’s hear “Middle Age White Man Drives West” one more time, and I invite you to listen for the details that create the implied backstory. Here’s…
Middle Aged White Man Drives West
Down the long grade to Ouray, Colorado, rain peppers the windshield,
and the red mountains sigh in the dark. In the bottom land, black cows chew
whatever grass they can find among the wet sage. The hound circles nervously
in the front seat. For the first time, there’s nowhere I’d rather be. Midnight
in Caitlin’s bed, laughing and holding hands. Laney’s nose ring shining
like a small blue star. They’re gone, and every chance I had to work in the woods
and wake to bird song, and still there’s been so much Earth. Orion every fall,
the moon slow and cold over the tractor in the backyard. The bearings
in the rear differential grind and turn. The vibrations travel up the driveshaft
into my spine. The old dog pants and circles. I got everything I asked for.
I just didn’t keep it. Jeff Buckley’s on the radio: And every breath we took
was hallelujah. He’s right, and the lightning knows it. Its brilliant fingers
hold onto the earth for as long as they can.
Prompt
If you’re writing along with me, write a poem that uses these precise, representative details to create an implied backstory, something that informs the present moment.
Outro
Thanks so much for listening to the Poetry Professor Podcast with me, Stephen Cavitt. You’ve been listening to “Middle Aged White Man Drives West” from my book Noctis Terrores.
It’s available on Kindle Unlimited and in print at major booksellers, and the link’s in the episode description. I’ll read the whole book to you here for free every week, but I’d love it if you picked up a copy.
I’ll see you next week.