“Poem of a New Driver” by Belinda Rule [Introduced by Thomas Moody]

Last weekend, the Bathurst 1000, Australia’s most famous race, was won by Holden drivers Shane van Ginsbergen and Garth Tander. It was a historic victory as it was the final Bathurst 1000 to feature Holden, the iconic car manufacturer of Australian classics including the Kingswood and Commodore. Holden was the last remaining Australian car company, until the brand’s owners, General Motors, shut down production in early 2020. 

 

HJ-Holden-Kingswood-1

Holden Kingswood

Growing up in Australia, cars were totemic: a symbol of freedom and independence and an expression of character. Much like in the United States, Australia’s wide open spaces lend themselves easily to the mythology of the road trip, while our sprawling cities make cars a product of necessity.

Belinda-Rule

Belinda Rule

Belinda Rule’s “Poem of a New Driver” captures perfectly the symbolic power of the car: “When I first get the car, I pull all the fabric / of the city towards me”. Rule’s ode has a casual lyricism and uses imagery which counters our expectations “the road a seatbelt / speeding on its reel.“ The poem elevates the experience of driving into a near mystical practice. The supernatural speed of the car unrolls the sky, abstracts and distills the trees into essence, transforming the driver into a “master of all trees” and a connoisseur of that unknowable moment before death.

Poem of a New Driver

When I first get the car, I pull all the fabric

of the city towards me, race it through

like cloth beneath the presser foot.

Come here, Geelong! And it does:

a satin bolt of sky unrolls,

the road a seatbelt

speeding on its reel.

 

You see so much of the sky driving:

you’re an eel darting upwards

in a limpid bowl of glass,

      trailing the road like a tail.

So much of trees, too:

abstracted and distilled by speed

into essence. When you walk

there is only one tree,

and your beetling body

labouring below.

At speed you are

the master of all trees—

all of them arrayed as if curated

just for you.

 

And always you know you might die.

A second’s distraction and

you will swerve, careen, flip,

and in mid-air you will be

the master of something new,

a mote exploding from the sun,

the knower of what

may only be known once,

and then only for a second;

at last,

purely happy.

       

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Author: Thomas Moody