Semansky is an instructor of literature and composition. In this essay, Semansky considers the image of driving in Bly's poem.

The image of driving permeates much American literature of the twentieth century. Think of Jack Kerouac's On the Road or William Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways. In these works and countless others, driving is symbolic of the quest for meaning. The act of putting hands to wheel is a metaphor for life's journey. Driving is both a means and an end in itself, signifying the relentless passing of time. Given the country's wide-open spaces and Americans' love of freedom and travel, America's infatuation with the automobile makes sense, especially for writers of prose. Driving often appears as image and theme in poetry, most surprisingly in the work of Bly, a poet most often associated with the natural world. Images of cars and driving appear in numerous Bly...