Thursday, February 4, 2010

7- Romanticism

Nature has always, always been my main inspiration when it comes to poetry. In class our teacher asked if we had ever experienced the sort of divinely inspirational poetry-inducing experience that Wordsworth had obviously felt and alluded to. My answer is Yes. Yes, of course.
The first of these incredibly memorable experiences took place when i was in the 4th grade and my family was vacationing in Switzerland. I had bought a beautiful new blue notebook which i had glued a fantastic postcard of two white tigers onto the front of especially for the occasion. I was dying to write in it, but i wanted it to be good writing, i wanted it to be special. Thankfully i did not have to wait long before i experienced the monumental life-affecting thing i was looking for. Trummelbach Falls is a series of 10 waterfalls which wind in and out of the mountainside. They can be viewed from the inside of the caves they have carved over time, or from the outside. Standing in the mist of one of the falls i felt it. Inspiration took over me, forcefully. And i began to write. I wrote pages, literally, of poetry regarding the waterfall. regarding switzerland, love, my family, the lush countryside. I stood in the dark wet cave, water dampening the pages of my perfect notebook, and i wrote so intensely and deeply that i cried. Eventually my patient and accepting family encouraged me to come out and continue writing in the sunshine as we went on along our touring. I went, but i did not stop. I continued this epic poem non stop for the remainder of our trip.
This would definitely be the first documented experience of nature inspiration that i have had but it is definitely not the first to have taken place. I recall sitting in the middle of our huge rhododendron bush as the sun set one late afternoon and watching everything around me turn golden and sparkling in the light of the setting sun. this also made me cry and i immediately ran into my house to retrieve a pencil and notebook in order to capture the experience. unfortunately when i returned not only had the sun set, but i was unable to accurately express either the beauty or how it made me feel. this threw me into such a deep and startling sadness that i had never before felt. i remember writing instead about how i was not able express the experience. instead i managed to memorize the moment in my mind so it could be drawn upon at an instant later in life. i was 7. the lasting disappointment has always followed me around and is probably why i feel such a strong need to write about things immediately when i feel them