Kerouac's hidden highway...
“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.”
— Jack Kerouac (On the Road)
As far as things go, I’ve always loved a good vintage, and that includes poetry. There’s something deeply special about returning to older works and rediscovering their hidden treasures.
The Beat poets had rare and powerful gifts. Their use of language created little universes that conveyed vast emotional depths. They often took ordinary, everyday objects and scenes and transformed them into something far more meaningful. What begins as a simple description becomes a deeply lived experience. After reading their work, the world itself begins to look like poetry.
One of my favorite poems is Jack Kerouac’s “Hitchhiker.” Kerouac’s framing of the road as a symbol for life has long been a favorite of mine, and this poem elevates it even further. In a single roadside scene, he presents a hitchhiker standing in the rain, trying to catch a ride to sunny California, wearing an “awful raincoat” that makes him look like “a selfdefeated, self murdering imaginary gangster.” He imagines the drivers passing by projecting their worst fears onto him. On the surface, the tone is weary, paranoid and coldly observational. Yet the deeper magic of the poem reveals a hidden message. Through the rainy weather, it suggests that darkness is only the immediate reality, while hope lies in the sunshine of the destination. But it is more than this.
At its core, one man stands on the road simply hoping to connect with another willing to share their space to assist him. The driver, who may be lacking greater purpose, gains it by offering help to the hitchhiker. In this way, the hitchhiker and the driver become interconnected. They need each other to elevate. Not in spite of the odds, but because of them. Together then, they give the road itself its purpose. When viewed through this lens, everything becomes beautiful and necessary. Every journey, no matter how small, becomes meaningful through this experience. I feel that this same shared experience also occurs between a reader & a poem.
Blog originally posted on my website: HERE.
“KEROUAC ON THE BUS” published HERE.