Welcome to National Poetry Month and Gyroscope Review’s month-long celebration of poets – and their diverse Writing Assistants. Enjoy the audio/video works by previous Gyroscope Review poets and be sure to check out the Author and fun Writing Assistant Bio at the end of each NPM poet post. Don’t forget to tag the poet on Social Media and let them know you enjoyed their work!
Sex Appeal of an El Camino
Sex Appeal of an El Camino An El Camino is what happens when a truck makes sweet, dirty love to a station wagon while Lynyrd Skynyrd plays on the 8track or Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir An El Camino is a coupe, a muscle car a Chevrolet with rear wheel drive, pick up classified swivel bucket or notchback bench seats vinyl striped patterns, you can pick up just about anyone if you have an El Camino An El Camino is V-shaped like the smooth geese heading to Mexico like its revved big block engine like the space between my legs capital “V” capital “EL” An El Camino is Prince if he were a seductive utility steel bed, smooth grille, side skirts carpeted door panels, stylized suspension upgrade woodgrain panel trim, plush upholstery, Cam shaft hydraulic front bumper, copious V6 or V8 An El Camino is four generations of trial and error, invention and reinvention utility and impracticality, of ironic self-awareness legacy a vehicle, when someone demands, are you a car or are you a truck? takes a drag of its cigarette, eyebrows raised, and exhales, both. "Sex Appeal of an El Camino" first published in Gyroscope Review, April 2023 (Spring Issue).
WRITING ASSISTANT BIO
When she’s not reading or writing poems or teaching, Hayden is with her family and their menagerie of rescue animals on a small windy farm. They have two cats, two goats, seven pigs, many chickens, and two dogs; a very special blind, three-legged Schnauzer/Shepherd named Vinny Valentine and a completely deaf, mostly blind chihuahua named Babydog. Also, Hayden once touched a cloud after jumping out of a perfectly good airplane (not like cotton candy at all) and her dream vehicle is an El Camino, with a big, blazing Lady Guadelupe painted on the hood.
AUTHOR BIO
Amanda Hayden is the current Poet Laureate for Sinclair College and award-winning Professor of Humanities, Philosophy, and World Religions. Her debut collection, American Saunter, inspired by traveling across the U.S., is forthcoming by FlowerSong Press in Fall 2024. Old World Wings, her second collection inspired by European travels, is forthcoming by Wild Ink Publishing in Fall 2025. She just received the River Heron Editor’s Prize for Poetry for her poem, The Faery Bridges. She lives on a windy little farm with her family, many furry rescue babies, including a blind, three-legged “angel in a dog suit” Vinny Valentine.
Don’t forget to read the Spring 2024 Issue of Gyroscope Review.
NPM 2024 Poets
April 1 – Cal Freeman
April 2 – Susanna Lang
April 3 – Marion Brown
April 4 – Melissa Huff
April 5 – Elaine Sorrentino
April 6 – Alison Stone
April 7 – Alexandra Fössinger
April 8 – Laurie Kuntz
April 9 – Dick Westheimer
April 10 – Wendy McVicker
April 11 – J.I. Kleinberg
April 12 – Ellen Austin-Li
April 13 – D. Dina Friedman
April 14 – Connie Post
April 15 – Georgina Key
April 16 – Judith McKenzie
April 17 – Jacqueline Jules
April 18 – Amanda Hayden