Chris Martin and Meaning

            Chris Martin’s poem “Blood on the Tarmac” seemingly contains fragments of many stories, like whose blood was on the tarmac, and why can he not be innocent in Minnesota, and to whom does he return.  His language, however, takes us away from these close up pictures, away from the “patchwork face of the suburbs” almost as if the reader joins Martin in this airplane and watches the world from a distance.  What appear to be stories become a minute glimpse of the landscape Martin describes.  Focusing on such details only distracts the reader.  The feeling in Martin’s poems comes from the view from above, glancing down to see a hectic, complex, and utterly meaningless world.  He seamlessly connects the varied scenes into this portrait.  Each word used interests me somehow, as unique as his ideas and strangely fitting together so well.  Martin describes events that I have experienced countless times, yet that can feel incredibly arduous or alternatively fantastic.  I like this poem because rather than leaving me in distressing confusion that these experiences can leave in their wake, it challenges me to think beyond that, envisioning both the mundane and the magnificent that are individually lovely so long as I do not try to make such moments meaningful.