The Willow Glen Resident

Photograph by Skye Dunlap

Creative Commute: One contributor to Willow Glen resident Jo Sarti's poetry book says one of her favorite places to write is the light rail. "I think it's the wheels going around," she says.

Willow Glen woman praises the poetry of the workplace

'Poetry in Motion' includes writings of 13 transit workers

By Rebecca Wallace

You might never suspect that hidden talent hovers outside your cubicle walls.

Are your co-workers closet torch jugglers? Can one touch his nose with his tongue?

Jo Sarti is surrounded by poets. And the Willow Glen woman has compiled her skills and those of 12 co-workers at the Valley Transportation Authority into a book of poems titled Poetry in Motion.

The paperback is slim but nonetheless bursting with strongly felt emotion, from the poignant "Lest We Forget (Fallen Drivers)" to peaceful haikus to the eerie "Destiny." Subjects include lost love, frustrating co-workers, nature and the death of a pet.

"I never realized the talent that surrounded me," says Sarti, 53, a clerk/typist and lifelong writer and poet. "You see these people in their uniforms and carrying their satchels, ready to go drive a bus, and then they sit down and write some of the most beautiful stuff I've ever read."

Reserved at first, Sarti leans forward excitedly as she begins talking about how Poetry in Motion grew from idea to reality. She officially started the project in June 1997 by circulating a flier asking for contributors from the transportation office.

She's already planning the next book, which will include poems that didn't fit in the first edition. She hopes to bind the new book with plastic or in hardback, unlike the pamphlet style of the first one, which sells for $11.95 at Willow Glen Books.

Sarti had the 100 copies of the book printed at a print shop, and says sales have been "not bad" so far. She has read some of her poetry at Willow Glen Books' open readings and hopes to set up a reading for the Poetry in Motion authors.

Sarti says she has a hard time with short stories, but poetry comes naturally, often inspired by her two cats and two dogs.

"We trained together, testing the waters/of trust and dominance./Still testing, she tries to tell me/what to do with a glance, a dance.../No Chance," reads Sarti's poem "The Heart Mender."

San Jose resident and fellow contributor Wanda Saxton, who does secretarial work, says much of her writing comes from her spiritual beliefs and years as a minister.

She has found that one of the best places to write is on the light rail. "I have to be in a special space to write, and there it's noisy, but I just write," she says. "I think it's the wheels going around--poetry in motion."

Bill Toller of San Jose, a facilities mechanic for the VTA, said his creepy poem "Destiny" was inspired by a personal experience--sort of.

A surreal vision of a man shuffling into an otherworldly hotel of "lost souls moaning" and "musty odors of old age," the poem was engendered in a nightmare.

"I grew up in the Depression and saw lots of old men coming in off the farms," Toller recalls. "They just worked themselves to death out there and stayed in at night with nothing to do, in hotels or wherever they could get along. ...I was determined that that should never happen to me. This was a nightmare that it did."

The poets' literary influences are diverse. Sarti speaks with feeling about William Wordsworth and Isaac Asimov, while Saxton says she started writing poetry after hearing Welsh poet David Whyte speak.

"I like Jack London. I like the he-men type, being a he-man myself," Toller says jovially.

Sarti also seems admires one of the Poetry in Motion writers who is handicapped but didn't let that stop him from contributing.

"He has trouble speaking, but you should hear him in here," Sarti says with a gentle smile, gesturing at the book with a pink-manicured hand. "You can hear him loud and clear."

[ Back to Contents Page | Willow Glen Resident Home Page | Archives ]