Travel Poetry Can Enhance Your Vacation with the Five C's: Craving, Contrast, Culture, Connections, Calm

Every trip I plan to take involves an extended discussion with my husband where we look at all of the places we'd like to visit. We banter about the pros and cons of each. We discuss any airline mileage built up toward free trips, war and other detrimental aspects, and how strenuous we perceive the trip will be. Sometimes we want an adventure, and sometimes we need a "lie on the beach" sort of trip.

When we narrow our choices down, we rush off to the local book stores and to some of our catalogs and buy those books we need to plan the trip-picture books, hotel, restaurant and transport guides, maps, wildlife viewing guides and identification manuals and some literature including poetry, mythology and history.

In writing this article, I chose to include two classes of poetry into the catchall phrase travel poetry. One set of poetry comes from the country you plan to visit and the other set comes from poetry written by travelers to another country. One advantage that poetry books have over other books is that they can be small and yet pack much food for thought and contemplation in a size perfect to fit in your carryon.

I find I have a wonderful experience if I crave something new. If my expectations make me compare and contrast what I dream about to what makes me feel then the trip has been worthwhile. If I learn something new about the culture, something I'd use in my own life then I've received a real benefit. If I learn something about the countryside or urban environment, this is wonderful. If I make connections with others from around the world, this expands my world a little bit more. If I find myself reaching a new level of calmness, my vacation has been successful. In this way, poems may take you on a mental vacation without ever actually leaving.

Craving

Travel poems often work their way into your daydreaming life by providing hints of the exotic. They use specifics about the natural world. They provide good sensory detail to help you relate and imagine. They urge experience.

This example is taken from "Tune: Sovereign of Wine" by Zhou Bangyan [1]:

"... Again I drink to doleful lays in parting feasting by lantern light, when pear blossoms announce the season clear and bright.
Oh, slow down, wind speeding my boat like arrowhead; pole of bamboo half-immersed in warm stream. ..."

It speaks of a Chinese tradition of drinking and writing poetry, uses a specific tree flower and describes a mode of transportation not used in most the western world. "Slow down" commands the reader and poet both to experience. Figure 1 shows poling in a sampan on the Shen Nong Xi river.

Another example is taken from "Hazy Arizona Sky" by Michael Lee Johnson [2]:

"...Morning fireball
hurls into Arizona sky,
baking down on cracked,
and crusted earth-
makes Saguaro cactus

split it's rubbery skull..."

Contrast and Compare

Our day-to-day jobs tend to be repetitive and boring, experience graying to where we forget what we do. A travel poem often depicts unique experience in an immediate fashion or remembers it, as does Holly J. Hughes in "Working on Deck"[3]:

"Coil the line down against the sun
the old timers said,
clockwise on deck,
and ten years later
my arms still breaststroke
the familiar movement..."

Figure 2 shows sleeping onboard a gulette in Selimeye, Turkey.

Such poems can also make us aware of political realities that differ from our own home country. They might point out inequalities, hardship viewed in sympathetic terms or have a tone of sadness as does Susan Rich in "Did You Hear, The Israelis Have Outlawed Watermelons"[4]:

"Picture a Palestinian woman: stitching up the palm
of an open hand, the inside of a small boy's
chewing-gum cheek, as the tanks roll forward..."

Culture

Even when we travel, sometimes our lack of familiarity with the language will keep us ensconced inside a tour bus or time will prevent us from seeing more than tourist stops. Yet one of the most interesting aspects of a foreign place is that we can learn about how people live, the jobs they do, the practices that form their traditions, and how they relate to each other. In "Travels of the Last Benjamin of Tudela", Yehuda Amichai [5] conveys one of those experiences:

"... And on Sabbath eve they sewed my handkerchief
to the corner of my pants pocket so that I wouldn't sin by carrying it
on the Sabbath. And on holy-days kohanim blessed me
from inside the white caves of their prayer-shawls, with fingers
like twisted epileptics. ..."

Pablo Neruda shows another area specific job in "Diver"[6]

"... From their boats, in mid-ocean
the fisherman
sink / in their rags
blue / with the night
of the ocean:
around them arise
the great fish of phosphor ..."

In Costa Rica, culture showed up in the many games of dominoes played at the local park on the picnic tables, with crowds surrounding and watching the action. Figure 3 shows a dominoes game in Quepos, Costa Rica.

Connections

Often while traveling, some of the most touching experiences we have occur when we converse with those from another country. Individual characters bring out the differences between cultures but also the similarities. The stranger is often aided, directed or given hospitality. Poetry can hint at these experiences and give a powerful message, as in this poem by Yehuda Amichai, "An Arab Shepherd is Searching for his Goat on Mount Zion"[5]:

"... I am searching for searching
for my little boy.
An Arab shepherd and a Jewish Father
both in their temporary failure.
Afterward we found them among the bushes
and our voices came back inside us, laughing and crying."

Alternatively, we can be made to feel at home as we watch another, preparing food, and doing the other tasks of life as in the poem by Susan Rich, "The Sand Woman"[4]:

"A coat of granules stains her skin,
her cuticles, eyelashes, hair;
grains insert themselves
into each meal of millet. ..."

Figure 4 shows a Mayan woman making tortillas in Huatulco, Mexico.

Calm

Most important for our health is to return home rested, feeling calm as if we caught timelessness and brought it inside ourselves. Travel poetry can inspire listening, experiencing nature at it's most minuscule. This example titled "Looking at Mountain Tai" by Du Fu [7] tells about the relation between sight and serenity:

"What shall I say about the Mountain Tai?
Further than Qi and Lu its green tracts lie.
The Creator clothes it in divine array;
While its north side shows night, its south side shows day.
With its layers of clouds open hearts rise, ...'

The experience can bring great joy as in "Reckoning" by Holly Hughes[3]:

"... We turn at last to this, wheeling, whirled,
sailing Great Circles of the heart,
ignoring what's not real,
not even glancing at the chart,
trusting wherever we find
ourselves, we are real to the world. ..."

Or it can take us beyond our immediate world into the future as in "Separate Destinations" by Kendall Evans and David C. Kopaska-Merkel [8]:

"... To take the mantle of flesh,
the structures of bone & vessels of blood
In alien woods where arching limbs compose
Cathedrals emerald and strange,
Where the fruit of the tree of life
Is no more forbidden / than is death?
And will I see you there?"

Figure 5 shows stalactites in Cango Caves, South Africa

Poetry is not for everyone, but it can add to one's life. Travel poetry can be the easiest to understand because when we travel, we share many of the same experiences and we search for many of the same things. Beauty can fill our hearts with joy, as can the unexpected understanding about culture or the appearance of a new friend in life. Some of these books of poetry can serve in the same way.

[1] Selected Poems and Pictures of the Song Dynasty, trans. Xu Yuanchong, China Intercontinental Press
[2] The Last American, From Exile to Freedom, Michael Lee Johnson, iUniverse
[3] Boxing the Compass, Holly Hughes, Floating Bridge Press
[4] Cures Include Travel, Susan Rich, White Pine Press
[5] The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, trans. Chana Block and Stephen Mitchell, University of California Press
[6] Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda, trans. Ben Belitt, Grove Press
[7] Selected Poems and Pictures of the Tang Dynasty, trans. Wang Yushu, China Intercontinental Press
[8] Separate Destinations, Kendall Evans and David C. Kopaska-Merkel, Byrenlee Press