People and Poetry

The People Project #1: Poetry on a Commuter Train

To the right is a picture of the Los Angeles Union Train Station. It is a place that I gladly frequent. With its Dutch Colonial architecture and Mission Revival stylings, can you really blame a girl? Located at the northeast corner of downtown Los Angeles, it is one of the cosmopolitan epicenters of the city: a blogger's dream. The station's allure is not only in the building's architecture and history, but in the diverse drove of people that is constantly streaming through it.

People, people, people! College students heading back to school, proudly boasting their university's letters on their sweatshirts; hippie couples toting around tattered guitar cases on their mission to save the environment by going green and riding public transit; men and women in tailored business suits with their flashy head accessories and dizzying conversation; fashionistas clicking their heels as they rush down the long hallway, leaving the scent of their designer fragrance lingering behind as they go; families with Texan accents who've come out to see the sights and sounds of the city of angels; homeless men who aren't actually there to catch a train or bus but rather, to sit and read the newspaper in the sinking demand of the lobby chairs.

For most of the people who come through here, this is a place to

which they go everyday, almost like the bathroom: they come through at least a couple of times a day and it's not something to which they have a strong liking or disliking, but rather, it's something that they must do out of obligation- it's just a life thing. These people are the commuters. There is a particular commuter train that carries a particular group of commuters from Montebello to Riverside everyday. Every Friday, this regular collection of police detectives, nurse practitioners, bankers, nursery school teachers and civil servants read their own original poetry to each other. Disregarding their varying degrees of writing experience, these portable poets have given their everyday work commute an invigorating skip-in-step: they read their poetry and they share faith, trouble and life together.

There is something so sad and withholding about the common commuter train: even if you live a completely unconnected life to the person sitting next to you, for the next 40 minutes, your lives are the same. Two history-rich, carbon-based life forms diverge paths and it's almost beautiful. The choice of anonymity in such situations is almost frightening. That's what's so extraordinary about these train-poets: this group of people who could otherwise stay strangers have decided to become an alternative family. They know each others grievances and they know in what each delights.

It makes you wonder of the person next to you "what is this life?" Perhaps they are a warrior, a survivor, a mother, a tortured soul, a fiancee, a Republican, an optimist. The way I see it (or am trying to learn to see it, anyway), is that we should feel privileged to sit next to strangers. But I don't think that it can't stop there- I think that those renegade railway rhymesters are onto something: why be content with being strangers with somebody who might change your life?