The Motor City, or The Poetry Capital of the World

A poem about a pencil that can walk is clearly a poem driven by a child’s wild sense of invention, but here in the Motor City poems about cars are powered by a necessity to get from one place to the next. It’s true: we are both the stories we tell as well as the cars that we drive. Sometimes, as is the case with “My Car” by Raphael Kirkland, our cars have seen better days. But that doesn’t keep us also from dreaming up the car of our dreams as you can see in “Dream Car” by Sean McCraney and “The Hot Streak” by Deante Smith.


My Car

 
My car is poor.
It has one rim, a left mirror,
a sign that says,
"Why lie, I need a drink!"
The best tires it's ever had were four
cement blocks.
My car can't fly,
it doesn't even have doors to open
to act like it's flying.
My car has a window,
not windows, just a single
window. It used to have a steering wheel.
It runs on gas
but does it really matter.
My car will sit
in the same spot
for as long as the old train station.
If it could talk,
my car would cuss me out.
 
Raphael Kirkland
12^th Grade

Dream Car
 
’96 Impala
all black
24 inch rims
all black
spinning
butterfly doors
lotta bass
black-tint windows
all-white interior
DVD player
24 inch TV
Comcast Cable
Xbox 360
I will call it
Da Oreo.
 
Sean McCraney
12^th Grade
 
 
The Hot Streak
 
The car that can fly.
The car with nobody driving it.
The car with burning wheels.
The car that looks like gold.
The car that is made out of money.
The car that wears shoes.
The car that’s got boosters.
The car that loves math.
The car that became a hero.
The car that looks like a lion.
The car that was on fire.
The car that loves to draw.
The car that goes to the moon.
The car that can lay an egg.
The car that lights up like fireworks.
The car that loves mud.
The car that loves to party.
The car that painted the pig blue.
 
Car of my dreams.
My car.
 
Deante Smith
3^rd Grade