I recently sent a poem I wrote while in Tucson (our first year as snowbirds) to a dear friend and mentor. I told him I had a collection of Tucson poems going. As a world traveler himself, as well as an esteemed poet, he said, “You can write, traveling?”
My first thought was, of course. But I think I understand what he meant. Traveling tosses one upside down, creates havoc with daily rhythms, obliterates a normal schedule. Traveling requires us to constantly reorient ourselves with our surroundings. That can be stressful, and stress hormones can be a detriment to the creative process.
On the other hand, traveling forces a shift in perspective and gives us new and energizing things to look at and contemplate. One can see new in the old, but one can also see the old in the new. That is, what’s true there can be true here, but maybe observing here allows us a new lens to truth.
As poets, we should strive to find new ways of saying, and traveling helps me do that.