Strategy Response 1, Week 3

Adrian Matejka’s “Wheels of Steel” illustrates a fresh play with forms and represents many of the themes running throughout his works. The implementation of song lyrics form a diverse voice for the speaker as he remains able to produce clearly poetic lines while also holding a vast knowledge of various hip hop songs. The length of time that these songs span—from Run DMC to Rick Ross—illustrate a thorough understanding of the evolution of the genre for the speaker that transcends the knowledge that many listeners of modern day hip hop might hold. Also interesting is Matejka’s description of a DJ scratching a record and stating that one song spins backwards while the other plays normally. This minute description of DJing brings this work to life in this poem and reveals that the normally indiscernible riffs and raffs of the DJ are actually the narrator’s own songs. The narrator repeatedly defies a standard definition as he mixes his knowledge of hip hop with a mastery of language and reveling that he also produces music. Through implementing lines from rap songs, Matejka illustrates a very knowledgeable narrator as well as flexing his own muscle regarding his hip hop knowledge. By taking others’ lines he speaks to a culture outside of the poem and makes the work more relevant by bringing it into the real world.