On the Move

The central image in the poem is the motorcycle gang roaring down the California highway on their powerful machines. Embodying youth and rebellion, they have a devil-may-care attitude. They are brash, self-confident, and beholden to no one. As they ride together, all-as-one, they are bound for nowhere in particular. The freedom of the wide road ahead is all that they need. They may seem aimless to others, but they are alert to whatever may come up on the journey and ready for new vistas and experiences. With their “gleaming” (Line 14) black leather jackets, the deafening sound of their motorcycles, and the sheer physicality of how they control them (“Held by calf and thigh” [Line 12]), Gunn’s presentation of “the Boys” (Line 10) captures a moment in American social history. Motorcycles were affordable and presented a great attraction for a post-World War II generation of male youth who felt the need to rebel against what they perceived as the drab conformism of 1950s America. They enjoyed cultivating the bad boy and outlaw image that could be easily created with a black leather jacket, a tough look, and a motorcycle. There was a strong element of masculine—phallic energy in it, too—suggested in the lines, “astride the created will / They burst away” (Lines 34-35), and “their hum / Bulges to thunder held by calf and thigh” (Lines 11-12).