Modern poet D. Rudoy continues reminiscing about the worst poetic drought of his life which extended into 2007 as he left the international boarding school in the UK and moved to the USA to obtain a bachelor’s degree.
Perhaps the strangest, and the saddest, part of this story is that in 2006 and 2007 I spent about four months in Russia conversing and reading in my mother tongue, and yet it proved insufficient to wake the poetic machine from its disappointing slumber. Perhaps the culprit was depression that sank its merciless claws deep into my heart? What I went through in my personal life during 2006 led to such hard memories that even years later I often shrugged recalling them. Pain induced by unrequited love was well-known to me, and most of the love poems written prior to moving to the UK were created in that very condition, but this time it was as if the resentment that had brewed inside reached the boiling point and stormed out in an unstoppable stream. And, while I appeared calm and functional on the surface, my hectic thoughts ran rampantly in just about every direction except for one that would make me write.
Unrequited Loves as Anathema to Poetry
Love often puzzles the human mind with the most unexpected turns of events, and it became the illogical part of my predicament as well. It is well-known (and documented) that romance is conducive to writing poetry: it takes one look at the titles of most famous poets’ compositions to prove that. Furthermore, a lion’s share of poetry is not only written but also consumed under the influence of love while love poetry remains the most-searched phrase related to verses. Yet in my case, it was the opposite. Constantly finding myself infatuated with this or that fair lady, I chose to rot on the inside and undergo profound psychological tortures instead of getting a grip and turning the tide with a twist of my will.
The Astrology of Love
It wasn’t until much later that astrology explained my misfortunes, both personal and creative. Some people dismiss astrology as a hoax, which is usually true about the horoscopes published in the news and social media, but creating a personal horoscope on the basis of one’s unique natal chart is a much more reliable art which, with practice, becomes surprisingly similar to an exact science. And sometimes explanations obtained from astrology can answer the hardest questions no psychologist will be able to even formulate.
For example, when a woman’s Venus falls into a man’s First House, the created synastry practically compels him to find her attractive and, likely, fall in love. The synastric combinations with my muses usually were worse, simultaneously giving me spurts of inspiration and inhibiting the urge to put words to paper. It took me a lot of time and effort to accept that obstacles impeding the creative process, no matter how razzing and debilitating, pave an excellent way to master a stronger personality that remains in charge despite any onslaughts, both external and internal,
The Long-Awaited Resolution
All good things come to an end, but the same is true about bad things as well. As my dream of matriculating at a good American college materialized, making me a freshman at Middlebury College in beautiful rural Vermont, the old loves quickly got replaced with new ones and the brightest of them eventually led to a collection of rhyming English love poetry which is dearer to my heart than a lot of the Russian poems I wrote because it wasn’t until I finished this collection that I knew I was capable of this feat. A long journey from not knowing English to writing poetry in it was complete, and the perspective the years gave me made me see that there was a lot more ahead still and that I was excited to continue and see what the future had in stock for me and the rest of us.
by D. Rudoy
