Random Bearings is an epic pantoum inspired line-by-line by no more and no less than 300 individual listings from the now-defunct Missed Connections website, with each listing chosen using the “Random” button that was on the site.
Not bad for a poem set in motion by biscuits and gravy and eye contact.
This poem is also the failed experiment of a storyteller trying to write a lyric poem. Rose Jermusyk takes what is meant to be a short, lyrical form and blows it up to a size meant for heroic feats all for the sake of trying not to write a story.
Yet from one stanza to the next, stories keep creeping into the text: sometimes endearing, sometimes painful, and — on more than one occasion — nonsensical. Tales of wished-for love spin from the voices of those seeking to reconnect. Or connect for the first time.