Script:

Today I’m talking about the emotional structure behind my dragon poems.

Which, in a way, is a project that has been unfolding for over two decades, with some very long breaks in between 🐉

For anyone new here, I created my website, dragonsinn.net, back in 1999. There were only a handful of dragon sites online at the time, and mine was one of the early ones. That same year, I wrote a poem called Guardians, which is still on my blog.

A lot of the poems from that era had strong nature themes or a classic fantasy setting.

Fast forward to 2024, when the site was turning a quarter of a century.

I wanted to finally finish my first full dragon poetry collection. That turned out to be a little too ambitious for that year, so I pushed it to the next.

At some point in my notes, I wrote:

This doesn’t have enough romance.

Because it was true—I hadn’t lived a thorough enough relational life yet to write that quadrant! So the final section eventually became Love and Longing, because by then I actually had experiences to draw from…tragicomic laughter included. 🎭

The full collection is divided into four quadrants:

• Early Relics
• Nature & the Elements
• Personal Mythos, and
• Love & Longing

Most of the poems drift away from classical fantasy themes. This wasn’t intentional at first, but it gradually shifted the whole tone or scope of the themes.

I was more interested in exploring dragon archetypes, psychological symbolism, and modern mythmaking through poetry.

So that’s today’s reflection: a small window into how a long, slow, mythic project evolves over time.