I was in 12th grade English class, breaking down a poem, preparing for the AP English Exam, learning the techniques of the masters and teasing out the ways in which they deploy this arsenal against our sprawling language. I too wrote poetry, as you can probably imagine, bad poetry, and I was sure, if I just understood the job better, I’d be better at it.
Personification: Imbuing inert objects with the characteristics of the living.
The algorithm is us. It sifts through the reams and piles of information. It curates. It considers and comes to conclusions. What is the best gravel bike under $3000? How many intervals should I ride on my Tuesday workout? Who runs the best cycling tour of Tuscany? We trust the algorithm to tell us. It is our work. It is our judgement. It is the eyes we look into when we wonder.
Alliteration: Repetitive use of consonant or vowel sounds to create a rhythm.
The trail offers time travel opportunities for those willing to lose themselves in its sinuousness. A rollicking from rock and root gives rise to ephemeral relief from the responsibilities of life.
Simile: A straight comparison between seemingly disparate ideas, often using the word ‘like.’
A guy goes by me, aero bars affixed to his middling road bike like a bull charging mindlessly through traffic. He is, no doubt, training for a triathlon. His phone is bolted atop his stem, feeding him the data necessary to maximize performance. Cars slip past, following the blue lines Google Maps has chosen for them.
Repetition: Consecutive use of identical words or phrases to establish rhythm or set up a conclusion.
If we count our calories and maximize our rest. If we make the right efforts at the right times. If we buy the best equipment. If we sleep in a tent from which much of the oxygen has been removed or move to a higher altitude. If we measure our power and create a training plan to optimize its increase. Then we still have exactly as many Tour de France wins as Lance Armstrong.
As I said, like T.S. Eliot and Wordsworth, I also wrote poetry. Though despite having digested enough of the above to get a perfect score on the Advanced Placement Exam, somehow my poems failed to find their way into the broader English canon. And this is the lie at the heart of our study, that somehow by doing the things the masters do, we too can become masters, that by observing the habits of the professionals we can become as fast as they are.
It occurs to me now that we were only being taught to recognize the mechanisms of poetry so that we might better appreciate the great poets and their poems. And if you follow that line of reasoning, then we only ever use a power meter to understand how little power we generate relative to someone like Demi Vollering or Tadej Pogacar.
I see a lot of would-be poets out there. On aero bikes and long-travel downhillers. Helmet straps inside of glasses. Leg-shaven. Be-Lycra’d. All of us scribbling away in our notebooks as if we know what we’re doing, looking for the next word that rhymes.