Last week, the Regional Transportation Commission held a ceremony to honor the winners of its first Reflections in Motion Professional Art and Poetry Contest. The eight winning poems and five works of art are now being mounted on placards and placed in Citzens Area Transit buses to travel about town edifying commuters. According to one of the winning poets, Dayvid Figler:
"It is the county's commitment to things that are more cultural and artistic. Buses should not be an unpleasant experience, and they should, at least, have something to occupy your mind with during your commute time that isn't just straight advertising or warnings of some sort."
In case you aren't much of bus rider, here is Figler's winning entry, "Great Moments in Las Vegas History":
CEO of Paris Hotel
Presents replica of Statue of Liberty to
CEO of New/NewYork Hotel.
A gesture of goodwill.
Imposter Sinatras and Chers
Creep out of her hollowed core at night.
Infiltrate casinos to sing siren songs.
Faux Lady Liberty weeps
Coin buckets for the huddled masses.
So, what would Figler make of "Great Moments in Las Vegas History" if he saw it among the advertising and warning placards on a bus? "I would think one of two things: 'Wow that's funny,' or 'What's that mean?'"
OK, what does it mean?
"I don't know what any poem ever means. Once I lose control over it, it means whatever the person who is reading it wants it to mean," Figler says. Answered like a good modernist.
On the other hand, as just another impartial poetry lover with an opinion, Figler does just happen to find a great deal of depth and nuance in the well-wrought urn of a poem that is "Great Moments in Las Vegas History."
"We always talk about Las Vegas being a replicant city and commandeering other people's ideas and even other cities. I thought it was funny that the Paris hotel and New York-New York were right across from each other. Maybe when we take the icons from other places, we take their history as well. There is a Statue of Liberty up there. Maybe in light of the fact that French and American relations have been a little strained lately, it is funny how [in the poem] the historical transfer of that gift to America was being subtly re-created in Las Vegas. [The poem] takes it to the next level of ridiculousness, and maybe the Statue of Liberty is more of a Trojan horse. But instead of the Trojan soldiers coming out to slay their enemies, it was more a virus of bad lounge acts and impersonators. The Statue of Liberty is crying for the huddled masses, but only because they are gambling. So much of it, I guess, is ultimately a little commentary on the entire idea of appropriation. But the bottom line is, it is just supposed to be kind of funny."
You are, of course, welcome to a different interpretation.
Figler is unlikely to be confronted with his poem, though, as he admits he doesn't ride the bus much. And apparently neither do some of the other winning poets. P. Fenkell's punctuation-free "Transit(ive)" is a tale of being on the bus during "heavy traffic on the Rainbow Curve/ bumper to bumper." I can almost visualize the RTC employees (who were not the judges—a committee made up of Nevada writers chose the poems) bobbing with enthusiasm at the poem's conclusion, as the narrator has the poetic epiphany about the tranquility of riding the bus: "Yet I am beyond the turnstile/ my commute is peaceful/ as I read the paper." Of course, CAT buses don't have turnstiles. But I guess that's what we call poetic license. In this case, the literal facts are abandoned in favor of the greater poetic truth: Oh, how peaceful it is to ride the bus in Las Vegas! Or maybe my interpretation is just wrong. You can have your own, of course.
Still, even for the nonriders, Figler sees the Reflections in Motion project as important to all of Las Vegas:
"It is another step for Las Vegas on the pathway to getting it to be a cultural town," he says. Or in this case, at least, a stop on the bus route to being one.
Other poets selected for the project are Ann Keniston, of Reno; Danielle Campbell, Ursula Carlson and Roy A. Chávez Alvarado, of Carson City; and Geneviève G. Generaux and Oscar Mann, of Las Vegas. The winning artists were Lauren Soffe, of Boulder City, and Maria Arango, Susanne Forestieri, Brian Henry and Kat Tatz, of Las Vegas.