Trying by Corey Qureshi

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Trying is a chapbook about driving in Philadelphia. Qureshi describes the great lengths one goes to to get to where they’re going and the frequently infuriating and/or inane circumstances—someone reversing toward you on a one-way street, being tailgated, hitting potholes, circling the block a few times before finally having to just double park, someone leaving their high beams on in the opposite lane—undergone along the way. 

 

i don’t want to be followed

around, forced into

 

an unscripted scene that

isnt worth trying so hard

 

to put myself in the way of,

 

i just want where i’m headed

to materialize here--

 

Were it not for traffic, you could get to where you want/need to be (and much faster). However, where you’re headed to can’t just materialize in front of you, you have to get through traffic first. 

 

"i need to go the stupid way cause it makes the most sense, parking’s a pain otherwise it’s all otherwise in motion even what’s stopped hums in the heatwave i don’t know anywhere that’s worth going, especially not the places my brain builds up for itself when i dont want six lanes the tradeoff is six times as many lights and stops, nowhere fast"

 

No matter how hard you try, you can’t get around traffic. When you try to outsmart it, you’re still stuck with something in the way. Plus, whichever way you choose likely ends up somewhere not worth going (“worst option inevitable”). Is this negativity about existence—not knowing anywhere worth going, everything turning out for the worst—or just the negativity that inevitably hits you when you are stuck in traffic? 

 

this ephemeral

traffic inspires         an impatience         that lashes

                                                              out

 

Central to Trying is a problem Qureshi terms “main character syndrome.” 

 

in the city safety doesnt matter

drivers just want to get to their place

a posture a needless intensity in their pace

all other life in the way

 

The manifestation of this syndrome is easy to identify in rude and reckless cars for whom everyone else, “all other life” is in the way. 

 

"everyone in the city thinks their life’s a movie thinks lemme just hit this turn causing much skidding a chorus of horns ok i lied sometimes i’m rude with the horn because i’m impatient i hate to be stuck tailgating behind someone taking their sweet ass time"

 

But the catch is that insofar as we are trying at all, needing to get one place or another, we hazard catching the syndrome (“most want to be / what’s made aware of”). “All other life,” including the one you’re living right now, is in the way of where you think you’re going.

 

cause how can you stand there blocking my turn??

 

i know that it’s my turn.

you need to get the fuck on with your turn.

 

In these lines, Qureshi undergoes main character syndrome while also expressing faith that if everyone just took their turn, things might be better. This is at least how I heard it, thinking as well of a line from “Right of Way” where he states: “do what you’re supposed to.”

 

all one ways lead to craters

deep as your kneecaps so

slow and swerve as needed.

 

a hole so big the car in front 

of you starts reversing up

the one way with a quickness

 

that has your horn going,

it’s all so stupid,

 

you can’t reverse into whatever 

is behind you, you sit,

it solves itself, 

 

settled for another 40 seconds

 

Qureshi uses traffic to speak existential double entendre, asking about the virtue of trying to respond to life with ideas other than the path that is, if clogged and full of potholes, in front of you. You can’t back up down a one way without hurting others and/or yourself; when you avoid six lanes of traffic it comes in exchange for six times as many traffic lights; quick fixes “stretch … out long problems”; the places you build up in your mind are never the places you end up in; no matter where you are trying to go or who you are trying to be, you are always stuck where you are. Notably, Qureshi manages the traffic with a syntax that is assured and flowing. 

Buy it here. 

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