Trucker's Sestina

[Droopy]

Trucker's Sestina

They used to call us the knights of the road,
now that's just some long lost memory.
I guess there's also been a change in the driver,
but much of the pride has been sapped of the job.
Respect is not forthcoming for today's trucker,
but they still demand you to behave as a professional.

It's very demanding to be a trucker,
most people don't know that about the job.
All the rules that we have to commit to memory,
to do it right you have to be a professional.
Some people think it's all about the open road,
well it takes more than that to be a driver.

Some drivers squeal, "Don't call me a professional,"�
they know it's still a blue collar job.
They'd rather the word be a memory,
and long to be called just "driver."�
All the old hands know what it takes to be a trucker,
with all those years spent on the road.

I've committed all the nation's interstates to memory,
I don't need a map to get myself down the road.
I've spent many a hard night as a driver,
awake at the wheel trying to be professional.
It takes incredible endurance to do the job,
and even more than that to be called trucker.

When I was young, I didn't know I'd wind up a trucker,
I thought I'd be some white collar professional.
Dumb is what I have etched in my memory,
was what it meant to be a driver.
But when I hit my twenties, I yearned for the job,
to see what it was that life held for me on the road.

After seven years, I know what it means to be a driver,
and I hate it when they want to call me a professional.
But it's not because that's not required of the job,
it's just not fitting for a man of the road.
White collar people aren't truckers,
to them, trucks are something they want to erase from their memory.

To every kid that wants to be a trucker,
know that it isn't easy being a driver,
and never let it become just a job.

If you know how to write a sestina you will know that that poem does not exactly follow the rules for a sestina. But I wrote it before I knew what all of the rules are.

[Generic Other]

1. One doesn't associate truckers with sestina writing

My favorite lines:

"I've committed all the nation's interstates to memory,
I don't need a map to get myself down the road."

I find it interesting that you bemoan the new "professional" job designation. It suggests that honest sweat is no longer valued in our society unless it is given a fancy title.

Thanks for sharing.

[Droopy]

2. Thank you

You don't know how many drivers I've heard say that they don't want to be called a professional. There are some that do like it, though. They started calling drivers "professionals" in some of the trade magazines and now a lot of trucking companies do it. Even though trucking is a skilled trade, it's still a blue collar job, and a lot of drivers think that calling them professionals is just kissing their asses.

On edit: That poem was written with a poetry instructor in mind. I told him one day that I had been a trucker before going back to college. He thought that being a driver would be conducive to writing poems. Lots of memories and places seen. He thought that people would be "enthralled" by some of the stories that I could relate. Well I don't think he was enthralled, but he did like the poem. I've also got another poem about trucking, but it's a more romanticized version of the job and is actually written in the form of a sonnet.

[oneighty]

3. Many poems teach.

As this one does.

180

PS. You mean poetry got rules too? Ahh to be free of restraints.

Which I am.

[Droopy]

4. I like free verse the best

But I have an awful lot of rhyming and structured poems for a guy who likes free verse.

[oneighty]

5. Free thinkers

we are. Our drums sound different.

180

[Steel City Slim]

6. Throw Out The Rules

Write the way you feel. Put down the words the way the come out. If some people can't enjoy what you write because it doesn't conform to certain rules, that's their problem.