Jack White pens poem for Detroit

Over-achieving Shaun Brumber gets some warm words from his literary hero at the end of 2002 college-admissions flick Orange County: "Every good writer has a conflicted relationship with the place he grew up," the good writer moralizes. Examples? "Joyce, Faulkner, Tolstoy."

White Stripes and Raconteurs rocker Jack White is neither a Californian, nor an outwardly aspiring literateur, but the Detroit-born frontman expressed certain affinities to such hometown displeasure in a 2006 AP interview.

"I couldn't take the negativity anymore," he lamented. "[That scene] was draining me, I had to get somewhere where I could breathe again." Also complaining of a recent New York Times article that trashed Big Apple band The Strokes, he further explained the need to leave: "When that happens, you can't stay in your hometown because they'll just turn on you."

So White went to Nashville, where he helped drum up The Raconteurs to critical acclaim. But the press never forgets, and articles and blog posts sprouted about White's hatred of Detroit and its terrible, horrible, no good, very bad vibe.

This week White settles all family debts. As Pop Candy alerted us, the songwriter recently dug a pen into the inkwell of literary hometown ambivalence to turn out an ode to origins. "The following poem," he lovingly introduces at the Detroit Free Press, "is the Detroit from my mind. The Detroit that is in my heart. The home that encapsulates and envelops those who are truly blessed with the experience of living within its boundaries."

Without further ado, we give you "Courageous Dream's Concern" by Jack White:

I have driven slow,
three miles an hour or so,
through Highland Park, Heidelberg, and the
Cass Corridor.
I've hopped on the Michigan,
and transferred to the Woodward,
and heard the good word blaring from an
a.m. radio.
I love the worn-through tracks of trolley
trains breaking through their
concrete vaults,
As I ride the Fort Street or the Baker,
just making my way home.

I sneak through an iron gate, and fish
rock bass out of the strait,
watching the mail boat with
its tugboat gait,
hauling words I'll never know.
The water letter carrier,
bringing prose to lonely sailors,
treading the big lakes with their trailers,
floats in blue green chopping waters,
above long-lost sunken failures,
awaiting exhumation iron whalers,
holding gold we'll never know.

I've slid on Belle Isle,
and rowed inside of it for miles.
Seeing white deer running alongside
While I glide, in a canoe.
I've walked down Caniff holding a glass
Atlas root beer bottle in my hands
And I've entered closets of coney islands
early in the morning too.
I've taken malt from Stroh's and Sanders,
felt the black powder of abandoned
embers,
And smelled the sawdust from wood cut
to rehabilitate the fallen edifice.
I've walked to the rhythm of mariachis,
down junctions and back alleys,
Breathing fresh-baked fumes of culture
nurtured of the Latin and the
Middle East.
I've fallen down on public ice,
and skated in my own delight,
and slid again on metal crutches
into trafficked avenues.

Three motors moved us forward,
Leaving smaller engines to wither,
the aluminum, and torpedo,
Monuments to unclaimed dreaming.
Foundry's piston tempest captured,
Forward pushing workers raptured,
Frescoed families strife fractured,
Encased by factory's glass ceiling.

Detroit, you hold what one's been seeking,
Holding off the coward-armies weakling,
Always rising from the ashes
not returning to the earth.

I so love your heart that burns
That in your people's body yearns
To perpetuate,
and permeate,
the lonely dream that does encapsulate,
Your spirit, that God insulates,
With courageous dream's concern.

Related links:
WhiteStripes.com
TheRaconteurs.com
Cover Story: The White Stripes Play Us a Little Number

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.