Traveling is one way of collecting ideas for creative writing. Travel destinations are butterflies without wings. A poet can create wings for these places to reach many. Consequently, readers can experience a destination through poetry without having traveled there. Poetry about places can also inspire others to travel to unseen places.
The joy of exploration is a fuel to create art. This is a detailed journey of how I crafted one poem during a long weekend getaway in Italy. I hope it will inspire you with an alternative for nurturing your creative wells, especially when running dry.
Day 1
We visited the Vatican museums, where I wished I was a giraffe. My view of the artwork in the Sistine Chapel corridors would have been magnificent. Thankfully, I had my reading glasses. I could have ended my visit right there. That profound beauty was art at its pompous best. As I was busy craning my neck to the ceiling a word came to mind — fresco! I put on my reading glasses to confirm if the word was inscribed on the image. Divinarum Veritatum Splendor Animo Exceptus. Ipsam Iuvat Intelligentiam: The splendor of divine truth minds. It helps intelligence.
For the remainder of the visit, the word knockings persisted. I pretended deafness. Inside the chapel, I occupied the mind with Sibyls, who were prophetic women. Fresco! Fresco! Who is the naked man with spread legs? What a perverse mind. Of course, it is Adam being created by God. Fresco! Fresco! Fresco!
That evening I surrendered to the Fresconian* prompt. When my genie wants a poem, it will occupy me with a word or sentence to the level of madness. I would hang on to the word, though occasionally not sure of what it meant. Was fresco an Italian word for fresh? After consulting the dictionary, I began creating.