The Poetry of Travel- On the Baltic

Travel is one of the greatest ways to explore and discover not only some of the most beautiful places on Earth, but also how you as a person are affected by them. Most take pictures, many journal or blog about their adventures.

But another great, if less popular, option is to try poetry. Imagist style poetry specifically can not only bring back to mind the things that most made an impression on you when exploring, but also can allow you to express the powerful feelings and emotions brought up by your unique viewpoint. To attempt to remove yourself from the act of seeing, as Imagist poetry asks of its poet, may seem like a strange way to log a personal memory. But by removing preconceived notions and biases from an experience and seeing a place as it is in front of you is far from limiting. For some works in the Imagist style try the poetry of William Carlos Williams or Ezra Pound. 

Below are some place poems of my own creation and inspired by some of my own experiences; witnessing the beautiful ancient warship Vasa in Stockholm, Sweden and touring the city of Tallinn, Estonia.

Vasa

morning water laps
in the low sun night
the painted houses
on the hill

in the bay
the Vasa sinks
near the green islets
and is dredged back
frigid water left once more
in the wandering channels
she is pulled again
out onto the shore

for her sentence,
three thousand years of murk,
again she sits in the eye of the dock
all but cannons in her belly

Tallinn
columned stone arches
fly to meet small singers
in the grand high arc of the older cross

where the voices leave
the silent pews
they are hardly kept;
steps of city are filled up

while the singers speak
to the many stone bows and faces
drummers beat the cobbles
and the tier the city in sound