The Great Escape

The poem "Alive" by Joy Hario strikes me as a poem that relays a theme similar to those expressed in both On the Road and Flaming Iguanas. Both Kerouac and Lopez use the road as a way to escape everyday life. "Alive," though, has more in common with On the Road than Flaming Iguanas, for both Kerouac and the speaker of the poem go about their journey by themselves, for the most part.

The speaker of "Alive" seems to be heartbroken. Either her husband is drifting away from her (for she says she has a son in the second stanza), or she is a widow who is failing to find someone else to complete her life: She says "I am afraid of the sound of soundlessness. Like driving away from you as you watched me wordlessly from your sunglasses. This heartbreak causes her to want to commit suicide, as referenced in the fifth stanza. As expressed in the sixth stanza, she even tries to drink alcohol to escape her pain. By the seventh stanza, though, she has discovered that she can escape via the road, where the open interstate mirrors the many options she has left in her life. This feeling of limitless opportunities reminds me of Kerouac's hitchhiking in On the Road--he would hitch a ride with anyone and everyone, and not once did he ever metion worry about whether or not this expedition would work. He would simply comment on how the man or woman struck him.