About my holiday to Italy and the legendary city of Verona

I've just been to Juliette's house in Verona. Its about me, up there. Everyone wants to be one, a Juliette. Because, at this moment I felt like in the Taylor Swift song when she is free and following her heart. I'm doing the pose of the heroine. Whats a heroine? Its the main female character, like the hero, but a woman. Every girl wants to be Juliette, to get their Romeos and get married. But I don't know about dying for love. I just like the kiss in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliette, its really nice gentle on the female character. They're talking about how they have to be saints and pilgrims. Because Juliette is like a holy place that Romeo's lips have come to worship. You don't necessarily have to be thinking about love to do the pose, but I like to do both. Yes, thats the feeling of the film in my heart too.

Juliette's Mother is vengeful and angry in Romeo and Juliette. In the Baz Luhrmann version she is kissing that evil devil at the party. But in the end she is overwhelmed with grief when Juliette dies. Juliette's Father thinks he knows whats best for her. When she refuses to marry Paris he threatens to send her to prison, or to make her homeless. He wont listen to what she wants, even until she is dead. When he thinks Juliette is dead Paris stands next to her grave telling her he will cry for here every night. Paris is a bit obsessed. He can't let go of Juliette, even though she likes someone else. And find a girl that loves him back. I don't want her to be dead, she's too young to die. After she dies, he makes friends with his enemy.

There are lots of different versions of Romeo and Juliette. There was one performed when we went to Verona. There were some costumes inside the house from the different films about Romeo and Juliette. There was a film made of this story in 1936, 1954, 1968 and, Baz Luhrmann's film in 1996. You can see my previous post "Verona" where I wrote about the movie Letters to Juliette. I've already written a poem reviewing Romeo and Juliette in that post. It was about that play I saw performed by the Bell Shakespeare.

Now I've written my own letter to Juliette. On the third floor of Juliette's house there is a desk of Juliette where you can apply to type her a note. On the computers in Juliette's desk. I wrote to her about the Baz Luhrmann film Romeo and Juliette. He did Moulain Rouge, and Stricktly Ballroom too. Thats a part the Shakespeare of Baz Luhrmann. And don't forget Shakespeare in love. Thats a film, its directed by John Madden, and one of the writers was Tom Stoppard who also writes theatre plays. Its a fictional love affair between Shakespeare and Gweneth Paltrow while Shakespeare was writing the play Romeo and Juliette.

I also saw the special lockets lovers use to show their love, they throw the key away into the river Arno. That's the river in Verona. Its illegal, but people still do it anyway.

Conversations and Reflections on Italy

By Emma Brodie

I was in Italy and now I'm back.

I want to think about the earthquake,

That terrible day in Umbria,

The earthquake that happened that was near our house,

Our holiday house in Capistrano, a little village in Abruzzo.

I don't know how to explain it,

But terremoto is the word in Italian for earthquake.

I don't know how the accidents of the earthquake happened

I was asleep in bed and so was my sister.

That night before we watched a tv show,

The whole family, watching all together in Italy we did, all relaxed.

The messages came in the morning, emails about if we were okay.

Mum felt the earthquake, it woke her up in the middle of the night.

In the morning she texted everyone to say we were all right.

Emma: Sometimes I don't remember things. Not the stories of everything.

I was staying with all my cousins and friends in Capistrano. My cousins are from the UK. Probably my Mum knows the story of my trip. You could ask her about it.

Anna: But your Mum wouldn't know the story of your experience. Your own thoughts about it, your own impressions. I want to know about your experience, Emma.

Emma: My experience is of Verona. My Mum and my sister came with me to Verona.

I just went up on the balcony. It was good posing like Juliet. Feeling that song of Taylor Swift's I really love that. I was imaging my heart out there, on the balcony, pouring out my heart. My Mum was down the bottom taking the photos. Verona was special. Can you tell me why?

Anna: Well Emma, I think you should tell me why. You've already said some things about how special it was for you, so, tell me more.

Emma: I just don't know ...

Anna: Yes you do! Let's take it slowly and think about it. So what's Verona famous for, at least for English speaking people?

Emma: Yes, it's the special place where Romeo and Juliet came from.

Anna: In the play Shakespeare sets the action in Verona but we don't know if it's actually true.

Emma: They don't have any family still there do they? It's (the play) is not exactly the same as the movie. I've been to the temple in Verona where she was buried. (Emma finds and reads from her guide book)"It's about a legend ..." What's a legend?

Anna: A legend is a story that has been told over hundreds of years and you don't know if it's true or not.

Emma: I think it's true with Shakespeare.

Anna: I think Shakespeare made it very true.

Emma: I know he's a powerful man, isn't he, to make romance out of there (Verona) and of that couple. I still have the big book I won with Shakespeare's writings in it. And I do have a picture of myself there in Verona, I do, and some are a bit jealous. Everyone wants their Juliet or their Romeo, can you tell me why that is?

Anna: Well I'm thinking you can tell me more about that because you're more of a romance expert than me!

Emma: I'm not that expert about Shakespeare, I'm not a Capulet or a Montague. I just want to know why these parents break them apart. I know the mum and dad wanted her to marry Paris. I don't know what happened to Paris. What happened to him?

Anna: Well, the thing with Paris was a complication of the main story. Juliet's mother was trying to improve her daughter's position. Paris was not part of Juliet's chosen path and so is he is - what's that term from your film course? - the obstacle - the Great Divide, the problem that the lovers have to overcome. And the biggest thing they have to overcome is the hatred between their families. So Paris. kind of gets rolled up in the Capulet side of things.

Emma: It's her mother is it? Sometimes I don't like those kinds of families. Why do you treat your daughter badly if she is someone you love the most?

Anna: Because some people have very selfish love.

Emma: Why do they, what's that?

Anna: Selfish love is when you think the person you love is or should be the same as yourself. That means that you think that everything you want is what they should want. But they don't because they are separate human beings. They have thoughts and feelings of their own.

Emma: Really?

Anna: Like, for instance, there was this TV series I was watching yesterday. The. guy, Don Draper, was in love with his new wife, Megan Draper, but really he did not see what his wife wanted - he just assumed what he wanted was exactly the same as what she wanted and what she should want as well. He didn't notice that Megan had thoughts and feelings of her own, he didn't really know her. Because she was different, even in little things like, he ordered her food without asking her what she wanted and he kept ignoring the signs of her not wanting the things he assumed. Selfish love is when you use the other person to make your dreams come true, it's not really sharing your life with them.

Emma: Like with my friends?

Anna: No, I don't think so, but in any case it's often a mistake people make when they are young ...

Emma: With a disability?

Anna: Oh no, not only, not at all. Bottom line, if Juliet's mother was really concerned about what made her daughter happy -

Emma: - she should know she loves Romeo better than Paris ...

Anna: Exactly! You got it, Emma! Anyhow back to the city, the city of Verona -

Emma: I don't know how popular Verona is -

Anna: Very popular!

Emma: Really? It's popular of shopping of Tiffany's?

Anna: Not that much for shopping or jewellery. More for Juliet's balcony.

Emma: I am jealous of too many Juliets around.

Anna: Too many Juliets? How can there be .... Oh, you mean the "letters to Juliet" thing? Too many letters from people to Juliet?

Emma: Yes. I love the word Capulet, it sounds like an angel word, and it reminds me of paintings of Juliet.

Anna: A lot of people paint what they imagine Juliet would look like.

Emma: I still like her tears though, in the (Baz Lurhmann) movie. Like the bit where she is lying with candles in a church. Like the one I saw, in the Catedrale di Verona, with the statue of Maria Madre di Misericordia.

A Chat With Alice at Friday Night Writers

Emma: They've got different kinds of poetry in the book by Daisy Goodwin. It's from one of my Mum's friends. I have to show Anna that. Anna loves writing poetry with me a lot lately and, well, I want my poems to be difficult.

Alice: What kind of difficult?

Emma: Just like that, in Italian. And I need some help. Probably they don't have any poetries in Italian do they?

Alice: I'm sure they have lots of poetry in Italian. Remember how we read some Roman poems about love?

Emma: What about, in Verona?

Alice: Yes, remember how we read in your book about Juliet's house? About the Italian story that Shakespeare based his play on? These are the walls of Juliet.

Emma: Where people write their letters to Juliet?

Alice: Yes. We can see that on those walls there is a good history of the legend. That the house used to belong to the family Capuleti, so Romeo and Juliet's story was probably based in fact.

Emma: What's a fact?

Alice: Its something thats true, not just made up.

A Chat With Anna on Poetry Lesson Mondays

Emma: I don't have a Romeo right now, that why I am experiencing myself. I was travelling and I felt different.

Anna: So are you saying that, when you were travelling, you could experience yourself in a different way?

Emma: Yes. I love the song "Let It Go" - let go of my negative thoughts. And my behaviour. Making a fresh start, I think so, yes.

Anna: Getting to know who you are?

Emma: Yes, because I am trying to be a good worker, to get out the negative things.

I'm not a bad person, I do love my sister Rhiannon, I know she has worried about me in the past but I want her worrying about me to stop. I'm a big girl and I can make my own decisions

Anna: Final lines about all this, Emma?

I want the world to love me

I want to be the world's Juliet

That's the story and next time,

I will write another.