In “The Cabdriver’s Smile”, Denise Levertov writes about a cabdriver with rather poor customer service skills. The cabdriver does not seem to accept the passenger, even after receiving a very generous tip and is not even pleased when a fellow cabdriver greets him, even though he does not actually know the man. Upon seeing the cabdriver’s license photo, the passenger concludes that this man is hiding “longing and hope”. I do not feel this is necessarily a fair conclusion, especially since she has only seen this man once. For all she knows, the cabdriver is just having a bad day, but otherwise could be a very pleasant man. What about this man’s actions make the passenger extrapolate this one experience out to his entire life?
The Arts, The City, and Me: Encounters with New York
Professor Drabik – Fall 2014
Your explication of the poem is much different from what Joshua wrote. I think it is hard to believe that the poet is upset with the taxi driver since she gave him a generous tip and decided to call her poem, “The Cabdriver’s Smile.”