"The Beauty in the Mundane: An Interview with Richard Matzen" by Owen Roberts

If the average person was to break down their life into the proportions of time they spend on each of their activities, they would quickly realize what a large part of it is spent in their car while commuting. Residents of the greater Los Angeles area must learn the discipline necessary to travel the endless sea of mufflers and brake lights that routinely stretch over the horizon. For many who find themselves engaged in this daily expedition, it is easy to become lost in thinking about the time wasted or the drudgery of sitting idly on the interstate. But when talking to Richard Matzen, I was made aware very quickly that he does not share this sense of dread about his commute.

Matzen is a well-traveled poet and author with a long history in education. He has lived in such places as Indiana, Oregon, Colorado, and, now, in California. He is the author and editor of a number of academic articles and books and has been writing for publication since 1985. In 1992, he began to teach writing to students at various institutions before arriving at Woodbury University in 2005. In his poetry collection, Going, and in the reading he offered the community at the book’s release in April of 2017, Matzen conveyed an insatiable appetite for experiences, reflected in the fact that he was able to pull meaning from and paint a picture of something as boring as traffic. Good authors have a way with words that are able to challenge previous understandings of the mundane. As he asserts, “On one level, [commuting] is a lot of dead time . . . I never had a commute before like the one I had in LA. I have driven 50 minutes to work before, but never with the same risk factors as the LA freeways.”

Nationally, Los Angeles is infamous for its traffic, to the point that it seems to be without any rhyme or reason. The unique nature of Los Angeles traffic serves as a sort of inspiration for Matzen’s poetry in a way that I had not otherwise previously seen. Because he has spent so much time in other parts of the country, the comparison and contrast between our traffic in southern California and elsewhere is incredibly vivid. However, this point makes me think of the blind risks that we choose to take on a daily basis, even to accomplish things that may seem trivial or unimportant.

Since I also engage in long commutes to and from school, I can connect to a lot of personal experiences when I read Matzen’s poems. One particular talent that I think Matzen executes well is capturing snapshots of time, mirroring this form in the length of the poetry that he writes:

Descending

Hands curled through the steering wheel and BANG.
Bang to a slow two-beat rhythm into a valley
Curling around brown hills — driving / beating,
Writing / watching — so many cops pulling an 18-wheeler over.
Even more patrol cars cruise by while I glide
And return to a valley with my Blues
Beating another time.

The length of poems like this one shows how a moment can be compressed to fit within only seven small lines of text. Even with a short piece like this, I still get the sense that I have been there before, in that image that he was able to paint through his careful diction. I was captured by some of the words that he used to describe the surroundings and things that are happening on his journey home, such as “Curling . . . brown hills” and the police that he encounters on his drive. This poem encapsulates the feeling of having a long odyssey home at the end of the day in a few amount of lines. I asked Matzen if this book was inspired by any particular commute or road, to which he responded,

[The book] is about this feeling of going. You’re going someplace, you’re going to do something. But maybe you’re not. This book was inspired by my commute from Santa Clarita to Burbank, and the commute needed to get there through the Newhall Pass.

I think that Matzen’s commute is relatable in many ways, as certain roads become intimate parts of people’s everyday life. I have been able to identify these types of roads within my own life, which either I have spent an exorbitant amount of time on or had some sort of formative experience because of. Roads and freeways like Mulholland or the 101 come to mind when reading Matzen’s poetry. The emotions and imagery that he plays with when constructing his lines give the reader the feeling of longing and memory, delivered in a way that is relatable. That is what stands out about Matzen’s work, it all seems very applicable and connected to experiences that I have had personally.

Another thing that is apparent about Matzen’s work is that he has a way of finding a romantic angle to what otherwise would be considered a mundane part of daily life. The idea of writing a poetry book about the commute seems to downplay the complexity of the practice at first. When I commented about this to him, he responded by saying, “Particularly when you do a commute for a long time (and your experience may be similar with the 101), you just see strange things.”

This observation rings true to any regular commute that I have been on. Regardless of how frequently I make a trip down a specific route, I seem to find countless new things to see and observe on the way to my destination. This serves as a good exercise in observation and introspection, as it seems formative to discover things that were right in front of you the whole time. Matzen continued by adding, “It’s interesting that so many people commute by themselves, so the car becomes more of a private domain, in a way. And, similar to Asian cultures, we try to avoid eye contact with people in the other cars.”

Before having this interview with Matzen, I had not paid much attention to the ways that social cues change when you get behind the wheel. Eye contact in particular changes in these situations, and Matzen makes a good point that engaging in direct eye contact while driving seems more uncomfortable than in other situations. In a social setting, eye contact is considered to be good etiquette and is widely encouraged when interacting with others, at least in the West. However, the social practice of eye contact while driving seems to be different, such that it is stigmatized. Each line of his poetry reflects this sense of discovery about mundane things, all aiming to challenge the reader to reevaluate the moments they spend behind the wheel.

There exists a strong theme of travel and exploration throughout the entirety of Matzen’s book, with each poem reflecting upon a specific moment or place that he has experienced, such as his time on the 5 or the 210, on the way to work. This motif can be traced throughout the book and is made apparent by the tone he uses, in order to underscore the ideas of departing or going someplace else. In addition, poets and authors tend to pull inspiration and influence from others. I asked Matzen if there was a particular author that inspired his poetry book and the themes within it. He responded by saying,

I can say I had Jack Kerouac in mind and his feeling of the freedom of the road in mind. And, with On the Road, it’s a bit episodic. It’s a journey, and, along this journey, there are these scenes or events. That’s what I tried to do with my book — I try to make scenes and events within it.

Many of the themes that Matzen engages with do fall squarely within the same range of experiences and ideas as On the Road. Whether it be the childhood love of jazz or the feeling of freedom that is associated with the open road, many hints to Kerouac’s themes and emotions can be seen in Matzen’s work. The novel makes perfect sense as an inspiration for Matzen’s poetry, and it serves as a good foundation to understanding him as an author.

Overall, the experience of reading Matzen’s poetry feels as introspective and formative for the reader as it must have been for the author who wrote it. Each poem that I read prior to meeting with the poet himself seemed to invoke questions about my own life and my own experiences during my commutes. Meeting with Matzen and getting the opportunity to pick his brain about the things that I read was an opportunity that I am deeply thankful for, as I feel much more connected to the feelings he was working with in his poetry. There is no question that commutes are a part of almost everyone’s daily life and the time spent in them makes up a large part of those lives. I feel that Matzen’s message in his poetry was simple and powerful: that the most mundane parts of our lives can unexpectedly be the most inspiring.

OWEN ROBERTS

Owen Roberts is a 21-year-old student and freelance photographer. He is currently in his third year of college and attends Woodbury University in Burbank, CA. Owen has a passion for observing and documenting the world around him, which is why he is majoring in professional writing. Whenever he is not shooting or editing photos, he can be found reading and writing about what has caught his interest at the time. In addition to writing and photography, Owen also served as an editor for the fourth issue of MORIA Literary Magazine.