Daffodil array; via my garden 😉

On Thursday I posted a “true confession” as a writer, here, in which I discussed my very first piece of fan fiction: an eight-year-old’s riff on William Wordsworth’s “Daffodils.”

I also noted that, given I was living in tropical Singapore at the time (where daffodils do not occur naturally):  “…both my reading of William Wordsworth’s Daffodils and my unshamedly derivative response to the poem were both works of complete imagination—which I personally feel is quite a tribute to the original work.”

Reflecting further, I also think I unconsciously gleaned another very important understanding from the poem, which is the importance of observation. Wordsworth’s Daffodils is all about close observation, and also awareness of one’s response to that observation in terms of both immediate emotion and subsequent reflection.

Although only eight, I suspect I “got” that understanding of the poem at an intuitive level. It may be that it “spoke” to a quality already present in my make-up. Nonetheless, keen observation of both the surrounding world and human nature are essential qualities for writers, whether we pen poetry or prose. So in retrospect, I feel I owe William Wordsworth and the daffodils a “thank you” for the early lesson.

To listen to actor Jeremy Irons reciting Daffodils, click here.