"SuperNova" by Ken Chamlee
– all metal body, power nothing
Driverhood comes in late life by way of the “battle taxi.”
Kenneth Chamlee is the 2022 Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for the western region of the North Carolina Poetry Society. His poems have appeared in The North Carolina Literary Review, Worcester Review, Ekphrasis, and many others, including seven editions of Kakalak: An Anthology of Carolina Poets. He has written a poetic biography of 19th century American landscape painter Albert Bierstadt, and his new book of poems, If Not These Things, is forthcoming from Kelsay Press in 2022. Check him out at www.kennethchamlee.com and @kenchamlee on Twitter.
Author’s Talk
Ken Chamlee
I am a poet by nature, but I love writing these little narratives for the Personal Story Publishing Project. Being 800 words or less, they are concise and focused, like a good poem. Any subject can become a poem; it is all in the treatment and the language. But I have no poems about any car I have owned. The energy in this piece is how my car eventually involved my mother, something unexpected in the first three years I owned it. It also gave me a chance to remember my hometown as it was 50-60 years ago—the compact downtown area, the department stores, dime stores, doctor and dentist offices, and movie theaters. And how almost all of that changed in a decade. I have not yet written a memoir, but these 6-minute stories allow some seeds to germinate. — Ken Chamlee
