On The Miserable Road: The Poetry of I-95

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Interstate 95 inspires more than just four-letter words, it turns out.Twenty five years ago, poet A.R.Ammonsand his wife were driving home from a visit with family in South Miami. Somewhere north of Dade County -- on I-95 --Ammonslooked out his window and there it was: one of South Florida’s infamous mountains of trash.

Garbage: A Poem was born.

garbage is spiritual, believable enoughto get our attention, getting in the way, piling

up, stinking, turning brooks brownish andcreamy white: what else deflects us from the

errors of our illusionary ways...(beginning of section two ofGarbage: A Poem)

Garbage is a 121-page-long poem that wonAmmonssome of the top prizes in poetry, including the 1993 National Book Award.

WhileAmmonshimself wasn’t from South Florida, the origin story forGarbage does illustrate something interesting about the life poetic in South Florida.

“One of the things you do as a poet is you write about the landscape around you,” says poet P. Scott Cunningham, who runs the O, Miami poetry festival happening all this month. “But I think the dilemma you have as a poet in contemporary Miami is that a lot of the landscape that you’re exposed to everyday is from your car.”

Along with O, Miami,WLRNis asking for your poems about places that mean something to you in our This Is Where poetry contest. The poems must contain the phrase “this is where.”

And they certainly do not have to be about I-95 -- after all,thatis where most of us lose our minds -- unless you’re Victoria Warren Jackson, a teacher and writer who lives in Miami Gardens, works in Coral Gables and is stuck in rush-hour 95 traffic both to and from work.

“I don’t feel stressed, I don’t get upset,” Jackson says. “It’s just a really good, relaxing moment.”

When it was pointed out to Jackson that she was likely the only person on the planet to utter such words about I-95 she laughed.

Credit Kenny Malone

“I guess I’m just making the connection between the feelings that I had as a five-year-old that I-95 leads to a good place.”When Jackson was five, her family moved from a small town in Georgia to Carol City, seeking more opportunities.

Jackson still remembers seeing an I-95 marker right before their highway exit. That was her “Welcome to Miami” sign, she says.

ForWLRN’s“This Is Where” poetry contest, Jackson submitted the following:

 Hear Victoria Warren Jackson read her poem I-95.

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