Pastoral in Passing

Anyone who knows me know that I am not a nature-y person. I am very much a homebody. I appreciate the beauty that nature gives us, but, given the choice, I don't usually go out into it or "become one" with it. Pastoral poetry is a type of poetry that reflects on nature and the rustic life in a very idealized way. It really emphasized the beauty that the world give us while ignoring the not so pretty bits--bugs, mud, sunburns, those kinds of things. Myself as a poet, I try not to idealize anything. For me, poetry is all about the natural balance that the world gives us. And since I'm not the biggest nature person there is, the more negative things are the details that stick out to me. Needless to say, this made starting my pastoral poems a little difficult.

On Saturday, my inspiration came from spending the whole day building a deck with my family. It was a service project for a neighbor whose backyard is basically its own forest. I felt like the only thing I did during this project, however, was inhale massive amounts of sawdust. The initial ambition of the poem about this experience was to have it be satirical. It started off by being superfluously ecstatic about all the wood bits in my lungs, calling it a good thing that I was becoming so close to nature by being choked by it. However, somehow by the end of the poem, it became quite serious about the elation. It was a very weird twist and I think that, with some work, this poem could turn out very nice, so long as I keep that tone throughout the poem.

After that, I did my best to go for walks around my neighborhood (it has some vegetation around it) and to remember the forests of Germany (I spent the summer there two years ago). The poems that came from this were alright, but none of them stand out to me. The poem that stands out most to me is the one I wrote just after waking up to a thunderstorm. I interweave rain and dance in this poem, and there's something very delicate about it that I really ended up liking. I had just woken up, so the poem still needs some look revision before it's fully realized, but in the end, I was glad that I could find a way to really connect with the pastoral.

Thanks for reading and please, come back next week where I will be reporting on love poetry--going back to one of the first roots of the form.

#poetry #pastoral