Capturing the Poetry of Rain Through the Lens of Place and Perspective

I like taking photos out of airplane windows because it feels like the world is in a fishbowl and I am just a tourist. As if I was in a little “tour Earth” experience; this photo was taken on a rainy day in Miami at the Miami International Airport. The rain there is different from the rain in Utah, where I live.

I wanted to find two poets the exemplified how geography impacts poetry, even as something as simple as a raindrop.

How Place Shapes Our Experience of Rain

Writers often draw inspiration from the natural world around them. This is natural because the environment shapes how we see and feel before it becomes a metaphor. Rain is never just rain. It changes depending on where it falls, the history of the place, and the people who live there.

The Weight of Rain in Rafael Guillén’s El Cafetal

The Spanish poet Rafael Guillén, born in Granada in 1933, often writes about nature, love, and human life with a calm, lyrical style. His poem El Cafetal shows how rain can be tied to the land and the people who work it.

turned to wet earth with the plantation,

hunkered for days in the road to watch over the man

eternally blasted on booze, as good as dead

from one rain to the next, under the shrubs

of the cafetal.

In El Cafetal, rain is thick and lasting. It saturates the soil where coffee beans grow and presses down on the plantation workers. Guillén describes a man who stays on the road for days, almost erased by the rain, hiding under the coffee shrubs. The rain is not gentle or musical here. It is heavy, repetitive, and connected to hard labor and social reality.

This rain blurs the line between the body and the earth. It carries the weight of exhaustion and neglect. Guillén’s poem reminds readers that nature is not separate from human life. Instead, it presses down on it, shaping the experience of those who live beneath it.

Rhythm and Reflection in Gerard Manley Hopkins’s Spring and Fall

By contrast, Gerard Manley Hopkins uses rain and seasonal change to explore inner feelings and the passage of time. His poem Spring and Fall, written in the 1880s, focuses on sound, rhythm, and personal reflection of the seasons passing.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It ís the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.

While Rafael Guillén’s rain feels physical and social, Hopkins’s rain moves through the music of language. His seasonal images repeat and echo, creating a pattern that invites readers to think about loss and change. Hopkins’s work shows how nature can reflect the mind’s rhythms and emotions.

Both poets use rain to connect with place, but they do so in different ways. Guillén’s rain is tied to soil and labor, while Hopkins’s rain is tied to sound and thought.

Bringing Place and Perspective into Your Poetry

If you want to capture the poetry of rain in your own work, consider these ideas:

• Observe the rain where you live. Notice its temperature, smell, and sound. How does it affect the land and people around you?

• Think about the history of your place. What stories does the rain carry? How does it connect to work, culture, or memory?

• Use sensory details. Describe the smell of wet earth, the sound of raindrops, or the feeling of rain on skin.

• Explore different perspectives. Compare rain in different places or times. How does it change meaning?

• Listen to poets like Rafael Guillén and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Notice how they use rain to connect with place and feeling.

  
  

By paying attention to these details, you can write rain that feels real and full of meaning.