Overview

In Roadworthy, poet Dave Mehler offers readers the bizarre and unique opportunity to view the world through the lens of a ""hauling witness"" -- a long-haul truck driver in the US and a short line (or regional) truck driver in Colorado/Wyoming and the Pacific Northwest. The poems relate experiences in narrative and lyric based from life and work on the open road, ranging from ecstatic treatments in dense lyrical lines to prose poems, and even a couple that might be considered flash fiction. Some poems have oneiric, surreal qualities; some recount dreams; others are cast in the form of dialogues within narratives including a series of conversations ""transcribed"" from CB talk between drivers. Beneath the lyrical surface of the truck-driving subject matter, metaphysical and ethical questions are posed: does mundane work matter and can it be meaningful; is beauty or practicality inherently more valuable; does personal evil exist, and if so, how should we respond? The reader is invited along to draw their own conclusions.

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9781951547127

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Reviews

True to the title, Roadworthy offers readers the world through the windshield of an 18-wheeler. But this collection is far more than a compendium of tales from the truckstop. The verbal maelstrom pulling the reader along through the poet's asphalt odyssey is psychological, mythological, and, at its best, disturbingly spiritual. His images are rich and keen not only because he has a poet's eye, but because he has a journeyman's wisdom concerning what to look for. The diction is at once figurative and precise, the syntax dense, the resonances dependably sure. Mehler has learned to pay soulful attention -- and he demands that readers do the same. -- William Jolliff, Professor of English, Faculty Fellow, George Fox University These poems drive your mind through blue-collar ventures unaccustomed to literary affection -- the world of long-haul trucks bringing shrink-wrapped loads of mystery along difficult roads to deliver the true texture of working experience. Here are revelations from the road, from long night runs, from alley dramas behind the Dollar Store. The poet reports on smoke breaks, road kills, Van Gogh as a working temp, the quick architecture of stacked pallets, bad jokes, poverty, commerce, trusty friends, jailings, firings, early snow and endless maintenance -- all in a dense poetic line, a driven necessity badgering the mind. You will emerge from this book deeper in experience, and eager to speak the poetry of working life: the trannies then were geared so low you could pull the pass in first and never spin a wheel. -- Kim Stafford, author of Wild Honey, Tough Salt David Mehler has produced a collection of poems illuminating a world that most people see only in passing. His rich, multi-layered pieces reveal the world of those whose lives are lived on our road, highways, and truck stops. Mehler's poems deserve to be read and reread. -- Geronimo Tagatac, author of The Weight of the Sun, and Other Stories In Roadworthy, David Mehler takes the reader like precious cargo cross country from loading dock to loading dock. He reminds me that truck drivers are my brothers -- the human element in the supply train keeps the nation running for the long haul. -- David Memmott, author of The Larger Earth and Lost Transmissions For any of us who have spent long stretches of time working at a tedious or repetitive job, it can be tempting to adopt the opening line from Berryman's Dreamsong 14 as an attitude, a way of being in one's world: Life, friends, is boring. We plod along, head down, eyes blinkered, mind numbed. Mehler doesn't settle for this, heeding instead the advice of the wizened, crafty, old, truck driving sage in Ode to G.D. Winter: 'Remember, son -- be attentive.' And, attentive he is, taking the reader, Sam Spade-like, through a twilit world that many of us, whether we shop at the Dollar Tree or Whole Foods, know little about and think of rarely. Whether it's a haunted semi trailer, a Van Gogh doppelganger, the vagaries of road conditions and other drivers, or the constant specter of mechanical failure, there's always an ambient sense of threat or dismay present, and no detail escapes the poet's eye. -- Keith Hansen, H&H Drywall Roadworthy represents an utterly unique lyric register built on an unerring sense of rhythm, speed and sound. In these psalms of the road, Mehler hits raw and wild chords, unlocking a hurting music we didn't know we needed so badly to hear. -- Gina Ochsner, author of The Hidden Letters of Velta B. and The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight

True to the title, Roadworthy offers readers the world through the windshield of an 18-wheeler. But this collection is far more than a compendium of tales from the truckstop. The verbal maelstrom pulling the reader along through the poet's asphalt odyssey is psychological, mythological, and, at its best, disturbingly spiritual. His images are rich and keen not only because he has a poet's eye, but because he has a journeyman's wisdom concerning what to look for. The diction is at once figurative and precise, the syntax dense, the resonances dependably sure. Mehler has learned to pay soulful attention -- and he demands that readers do the same. -- William Jolliff, Professor of English, Faculty Fellow, George Fox University These poems drive your mind through blue-collar ventures unaccustomed to literary affection -- the world of long-haul trucks bringing shrink-wrapped loads of mystery along difficult roads to deliver the true texture of working experience. Here are revelations from the road, from long night runs, from alley dramas behind the Dollar Store. The poet reports on smoke breaks, road kills, Van Gogh as a working temp, the quick architecture of stacked pallets, bad jokes, poverty, commerce, trusty friends, jailings, firings, early snow and endless maintenance -- all in a dense poetic line, ""a driven necessity badgering the mind."" You will emerge from this book deeper in experience, and eager to speak the poetry of working life: ""the trannies then were geared so low you could pull the pass in first and never spin a wheel."" -- Kim Stafford, author of Wild Honey, Tough Salt David Mehler has produced a collection of poems illuminating a world that most people see only in passing. His rich, multi-layered pieces reveal the world of those whose lives are lived on our road, highways, and truck stops. Mehler's poems deserve to be read and reread. -- Geronimo Tagatac, author of The Weight of the Sun, and Other Stories In Roadworthy, David Mehler takes the reader like precious cargo cross country from loading dock to loading dock. He reminds me that truck drivers are my brothers -- the human element in the supply train keeps the nation running for the long haul. -- David Memmott, author of The Larger Earth and Lost Transmissions For any of us who have spent long stretches of time working at a tedious or repetitive job, it can be tempting to adopt the opening line from Berryman's ""Dreamsong 14"" as an attitude, a way of being in one's world: ""Life, friends, is boring."" We plod along, head down, eyes blinkered, mind numbed. Mehler doesn't settle for this, heeding instead the advice of the wizened, crafty, old, truck driving sage in Ode to G.D. Winter: ""'Remember, son -- be attentive.'"" And, attentive he is, taking the reader, Sam Spade-like, through a twilit world that many of us, whether we shop at the Dollar Tree or Whole Foods, know little about and think of rarely. Whether it's a haunted semi trailer, a Van Gogh doppelganger, the vagaries of road conditions and other drivers, or the constant specter of mechanical failure, there's always an ambient sense of threat or dismay present, and no detail escapes the poet's eye. -- Keith Hansen, H&H Drywall Roadworthy represents an utterly unique lyric register built on an unerring sense of rhythm, speed and sound. In these psalms of the road, Mehler hits raw and wild chords, unlocking a hurting music we didn't know we needed so badly to hear. -- Gina Ochsner, author of The Hidden Letters of Velta B. and The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight

Author Information

David Mehler lives in Newberg, Oregon, moving there with wife and kids in the late 1990s, to take over ownership of Oregon's longest running independent coffeehouse. He is the editor of the literary journal, TRIGGERFISH CRITICAL REVIEW. His chapbook, GOD TRUCK NATURE appeared in the chapbook anthology, BURNING GORGEOUS: SEVEN 21st CENTURY POETS, edited by Pamela O'Shaughnessy (2010). He began serving on the board of the Oregon Poetry Association in the fall of 2019. He is currently at work revising a manuscript of prose poems pertaining to his job as a truck driver for a landfill not far from Portland.

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