Airline pilots may seem all business, but lurking within those sober demeanors and snappy uniforms is a soaring spirit that drives their desire to fly.
“Pilots have always been poets,” saidPhil Long, 54. “There’s so much beauty and wonder and freedom involved in flying.” Come to think of it, the rural Washougal resident said, he’s probably always been a poet first and a pilot second: “I got an award for writing a poem in second grade. On construction paper. I’ve had the wordsmithery percolating inside me for years.”
Starting in college and through all the years thereafter, Long’s poetic spirit came out in song lyrics that he accompanied with a handful of basic guitar chords. Writing those verses allowed him to grapple with the deep, universal questions that he’s always been prone to pondering. “Everybody deals with the bigger questions, the deeper things of life,” he said. “The poets are the ones who write about it.”
Five years ago, at his daughter’s prompting, Long debuted an unaccompanied, rap-style piece at a poetry slam in Seattle — and found himself completely hooked by the wide-open, do-it-yourself atmosphere of wordsmithery on parade. “I was just astonished at what could be done with words. I realized what a strong attraction I had to that,” he said.
