My Love of Atlanta...sorta

Sometimes when I'm not woefully inspired by writing, I'll dig through some old stuff to reread them. It's important for me to see what kind of progress I've made, and if I haven't published the work or shown it publicly I'll read them. A poem of mine might sit for a bit and I'll look at it to decide if it's not bad, if it has potential, or if it outright sucks.

I've said before that I use the Southern landscape and particularly the Southern Appalachian landscape as a muse for my poetry. What I noticed in my poetry stash was that not only had I written poems about this landscape but I had written two poems about Atlanta.

One was called "First Time in Atlanta" and I talked about my first time arriving to Atlanta with the perspective of my small town upbringing. Don't expect nothing but sentimentality, however, for I discuss "homeless drummers" and etc. Whenever I start a poem, I'll sit on a line that I have in my head and try to drag out something meaningful in writing. With this poem it was "Atlanta was the first time I ever saw night." 

Another poem was partially inspired by Beverly Hall and the scandal of the Atlanta Public Schools. Beverly Hall was a superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools, an individual responsible for bringing a fledgling school system into a national spotlight, but the school district was later to be found to have engaged in test cheating and erasures by the teachers. What upsets me about the state was how people want to resolve the education issues in the inner city by incorporating standards that would emphasize those exact high stakes testing. It's a matter of the suburban metro Atlanta area dominating politics, so I wrote a poem entitled "Sherman is a Suburb" that was a sarcastic response to Hall, where I advocating burning Atlanta again.

Atlanta gets a bad reputation for its flaws. Atlanta is a flawed city. It is a sprawled mess. There's nothing I hate more than when someone from Woodstock says "I'm from Atlanta." No you're not. You're from Woodstock, just like I'm from Mount Airy. 

My friends would rather spend a weekend in Asheville than Atlanta. Asheville's nice, but it's not Atlanta and it requires a further drive. My family hates going into Atlanta, with traffic congestion and all the hoopla of being there.

Recently, a study on upward mobility placed Atlanta at the lowest scale for large cities. This means in Atlanta it's difficult for people living in the city to move upward from their station. Paul Krugman wrote an article, an OP-ED in the New York Times calling Atlanta the "Sultan of Sprawl."

I agree. Atlanta has all of this shit. Atlanta needs a better public transit. Atlanta needs more leaders that are willing to push for actual spending. Atlanta needs to use any funds it could possibly gather to afford a new Georgia Dome to actually spend on reforming MARTA or allowing private companies to put forth their own transit if they can't afford it.

So why do I love Atlanta? And it is love.

Because Atlanta is my city. 

Granted, I didn't grow up in a city. I grew up in rural northeast Georgia. Yet, Atlanta was our city. Atlanta was where we'd go to see the Braves play, which at age 8 is pretty magical. It was magical to see the pillars of the skyline rising and at night shining. It seemed so vast and large that it was hard to not love the city. 

For people who live in the Southeast, this is our New York, our Los Angeles. If you're from Iowa you fell in love with Chicago. If you're from Utah, you fell in love with San Francisco or whatever. If you're from Evergreen, Alabama Atlanta would be your special trip. It was the Empire Capital of the South, with actual legitimate museums, art, zoos, and music. 

This is what Atlanta was to me. It was the best of the South. It was new, all new, and I liked/like all the new. All the transparent glass buildings rising high, all the postmodern architecture with curves and geometric modifications served my inspiration and my imagination. Yet, it was the South. That part is becoming more diluted and you can tell by the restaurants. There are fewer mom and pop restaurants in Atlanta. Most restaurants are for yuppies and for the really wealthy, but there are some gems that display the culture of survival, hard work, and community in the South like Mary Mac's Tea Room and Daddy D'z. Atlanta was a city built on sweat, in textile mills, in rail, in manufacturing. That's why there's Atlantic Mill and Mechanicsville.

Atlanta is a city that doesn't seem to satisfy many people. People looking more of a Southern culture, expecting something akin to Savannah, leave there thinking different. People used to Chicago complain about the sprawl, etc. 

There's an independence in Atlanta that I love. It is a city that swells in freedom, as expressed in the park areas and the green areas (the tree canopy of Atlanta stands at 30%) and through the legendary figures of the city like Martin Luther King, Jr.

Krugman and others are right to poke Atlanta for its flaws. I can imagine how Atlanta doesn't stick out to many people. They come in, they only use MARTA and what they see is a Downtown that is growing to be as bland as Times Square (though the Skyview may help) or they see around Peachtree.

Very few see the alternative nightlife of Little Five Points, which gets crowded with hipsters but remains a vital area and one special to me. Growing up in a rural area, the alternative crowd usually flock to the trashiest places in those rural areas and my friends and I felt displaced. In spite of the rise of hipsters and similar individuals, people were drawn to Little Five Points for the same reason we were led to its direction. It's the least judgmental place for individuals who think differently and act differently. When I arrived into Atlanta after my trip to South America, the first place I went to was Little Five Points into The Vortex to grab the Elvis Burger.

Very few visitors get to see Grant Park and the serenity of the Queen Anne and Craftsman homes nestled in Atlanta's green backdrop and canopy, alongside Oakland Cemetery.

Very few can get into Cheshire Bridge, enjoy adult nightlife (if that's your thing) or an art film at the UA Tara, bowling at Midtown Bowl, or blues and bbq at Fatt Matt's BBQ.

Instead they stick around areas that showcase some of the nicer things of Atlanta (Fox Theatre for one) or they stick to areas that don't represent Atlanta.

I love Atlanta. I love it more than most cities and with exception to Chicago and Seattle it is the only big city I want to live in. Yet, Atlanta needs to improve its opportunities for rapid transit and make the big city worth moving to.

Because the suburbs suck.