Drivers at the Short-Time Motel

by Eugene Gloria, Yusef Komunyakaa (Editor)

Ephemeral lives, and souls lost in the tattered fabric of war, displacement, and ruined love find hope, redemption, and a common voice in Eugene Gloria 's artful concoction of American and Filipino vernaculars. While some of these thirty poems deal with the landscape and folkways of contemporary Filipinos, others locate themselves on the streets and byways of present-day America. Like many poets of dual heritage, Gloria's work is concerned with self-definition, with the attempt to reconcile a feeling of exile and homelessness. Frequently taking the form of character studies and first-person narratives, Gloria's poems poignantly illuminate the common man's search for connection to the self and to the world." Eugene Gloria's Drivers at the Short-Time Motel is propelled by an imagistic sincerity and paced lyricism. Each poem seems to embody the plain-spoken as well as the embellishments that we associate with classical and modern Asian poetry. Though many of the poems address the lingering hurt of cultural and economic imperialism, worlds coexist in the same skin through magical imagery. Gauged by a keen eye, history is scrutinized, but through a playful exactness. These wonderful poems are trustworthy." -- Yusef Komunyaaka

Genres: Poetry

68 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2000

About the author

Eugene Gloria earned his BA from San Francisco State University, his MA from Miami University of Ohio, and his MFA from the University of Oregon. He is the author of three books of poems -- My Favorite Warlord (Penguin, 2012), Hoodlum Birds (Penguin, 2006) and Drivers at the Short-Time Motel (Penguin, 2000). His honors and awards include a National Poetry Series selection, an Asian American Literary Award, a Fulbright Research Grant, a San Francisco Art Commission grant, a Poetry Society of America award, and a Pushcart Prize. He teaches creative writing and English literature at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana.

Reviews

[Tamora Pierce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not quite sure how I stumbled across Eugene Gloria's work--I think it was in Publisher's Weekly. I read HOODLUM BIRDS first, and liked it so much that I thought I would try this collection. This all sounds like so-what-big-deal, so I should explain--for at least thirty years I have loathed poetry. Loathed it. Wouldn't touch it. I might read W. H. Auden if no one nagged me about it, or e. e. cummings. I infinitely prefer the verse folk: Ogden Nash and Dorothy Parker.

But I stumbled across Gwendolyn Brooks once in a textbook, and liked her enough that years later, I thought I might try a book of hers and then give it to a school library. It's still here. Then I tried Yousef Komunyakaa's book of poetry regarding his time in Vietnam, because I am always interested in that, and the book is still here. And then I tried HOODLUM BIRDS, and got DRIVERS AT THE SHORT TIME MOTEL.

So consider me as having said some of the sappy stuff other people say about poetry: glorious, luminous, that kinda stuff. But I would say, he writes about real people on streets and in bed. One line will hang in your head all through the night and be there when you wake up. I can only read 2 or 3 poems before bedtime and I have to stop, because I'm breathless and my head is full of visions. There are weary cab drivers and worn-out mothers and steamy rains and gritty dirt in his poems, and grownups who give incomprehensible answers.

He's real. And yet he wields words and lines and verses like shining swords with razor edges, with a rhythm you can almost hear, but it never takes over your reading to the detriment of what he's trying to say.

And he only has two books out.

[Chairness · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful book of poems, a quick read that will leave you reeling for awhile. His narrative is unique in that no setting is safe.

[Theron Arnold · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this National Poetry Series winner, chosen by Yusef Komanyakaa, Eugene Gloria creates an interesting tapestry of images and language from a speaker who is tight roping between two cultures. Divided into three sections, the collection works its way through the immigration experience, to a family’s painful assimilation process in America, and finally to a more personal series of poems that shows the difficulty of trying to merge one’s existence when it is pulled between two sets of values, customs and even memories. The poems mostly succeed, especially in their ability to summon universal feeling from specific characters and sound qualities, but there were a few places where I felt the speaker’s authority waver. In some instances, Gloria begins stories with phrases such as “Legend has it…” (63) as a way to delineate between the speaker’s recalled memories and his inherited ones. Although this separation is important to the themes Gloria is exploring, as a reader, it often distracts from the punctilious language and image choices that are so appealing in this work. This fault was more pronounced in the book’s first section and seemed to dissipate by the end. Taken as a whole, though, Gloria’s work here is admirable.

[Patricia Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful collection: so much movement between eras, cultures, and images.

Some of my favorite moments:

She gathers herself like mist.

The old in our building are prisoners of good manners.

I watch the night my father has become.

I dreamed over and over my death from drowning, eight eternal seconds.

He is among the sleepless angels revising his life.

The stone button on your ear is green as beans, and bright as fireflies.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any poet is who is an obvious fan of Robert Lowell's Skunk Hour is going to be a favorite of mine! =)

[Linda]

Really looking for the yellow bird. Anifield-Wolf award

[Paul]

Review at asianamlitfans.