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.
