In my very first lit class at FIU last year, I told fellow students I had never taken a lit class before. Someone asked me how I managed to get into an MFA program without it, and I explained how I earned my Associate in Automotive Technology, got a door-stopper Bachelor’s degree in communications at University of Phoenix, and snuck in the back door at FIU feeling like an interloper in steel toed boots and engine-grease jeans.

Okay, maybe that’s not exactly how it happened, but it often feels that way.

I went on to tell my classmate that I write automotive poetry.

“What’s that?” they asked.

I shrugged and said, “I don’t know. I made it up.”

I’m happy to announce that my very first automotive poem has been published in the summer issue of Philadelphia Stories. You can read it here. Hopefully it will appear in print in a later issue, once COVID-19 is out of the way.

Every engine is a poem, and every poem is an engine made of words.

Many thanks to a great teacher…

I also have to pay homage to my favorite instructor in automotive school, Mr. Olsen, who passed away last week. He read and enjoyed my automotive poetry, which meant a great deal to me.

He was a wonderful teacher, and my prayers are with his family.

I always say that people are poems, too. Mr. Olsen was no exception.