Leveler Poetry Journal
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Driving into the Lilacs


Like anything, it had traveled a distance

to get there. Careening, coming to a stop, cradled absurdly

in the tight, reddish buds. Then, as if learning something new

about itself, it kept very still.

And like anything nightgowned, for a first time,

in purple, it liked it

and got comfortable.

Like anything indefatigable, it was not. The wheels were tired

of being wheels. And as could be expected, the flowers had grown

so thick in their beauty they needed to be shaken

to feel anything. The white branches

freaked, arranged

across the windshield like willis

in the dark. What was crushed grew more fragrant

then dropped. The roots strained

to stay roots. Leaves deepened the headlights until its lacquer

nearly pearled. Sort of amazing,

someone decided. And someone else agreed.




Courtney Kampa

levelheaded: Driving into the Lilacs


The situation in Courtney Kampa’s “Driving into the Lilacs” is clear: a car ends up in some flowers. With such a tight instance centering the poem, there is freedom, paradoxically, for the piece to wander while staying grounded.


Motion propels the poem, and weirdly so—there is little actual movement in the poem. The careening car comes to a stop early on, in just the second line. But the energy of its travel remains. The car stops, and the poem continues. Maybe only because the car stops, does the poem begin and continue. It’s as though inertia is (or at the very least, motivates) the speaker, a speaker who stops speaking only when acted upon by the force of semi-wonder (“Sort of amazing, / someone decided. And someone else agreed.”).


Toward its close, motion becomes more stressful and more stressed: the flowers “needed to be shaken / to feel anything,” the white branches “freaked,” and, beautifully, the “roots strained / to stay roots.” As we learn right off the bat, “anything” (everything) has “traveled a distance.” Compulsion is therefore implicitly part of the history of each thing there is, and we sense this drive in Kampa’s compelling poem.


Anonymity is critical to the piece. It opens with a wide-open comparison: “Like anything.” Other vague words appear regularly: “it,” “there,” “something,” “anything,” “someone.” This could be a safety measure—is there something the speaker is protecting by not revealing identities, by not specifying? Or, are the things she talks about themselves unexceptional? Withheld, unknown, or uninterested/uninteresting?


Comparison is also key. The first two words of the poem, “Like anything,” don’t further our understanding of the comparison. Instead, they defer understanding. Line three brings the comparison “as if learning something new / about itself.” Next, “like anything nightgowned,” and then the twisting comparison of a thing to that which it’s not: “Like anything indefatigable, it was not.”


Persistently, the speaker pits things against each other. In matching them up like this one after another, she creates little rivalries. Maybe these tie into the movement of the poem: everything is whirling around the speaker. She extends both hands, catching two things in mid-air and examining them in relationship to each other. The two things in her fists vie to be let go again.


Not just sort of amazing—but fully amazing, this sensation created of the near inability to be contained.



– The Editors