Join us for Journeys in 2024

It’s a fond memory. Once upon a time, I took my little daughters to the Louvre. My girls were being home educated, and one of our studies at the time was Latin. A favorite saying we learned together: veni, vidi, vici. The phrase means “I came, I saw, I conquered,” and it’s attributed to Julius Caesar in reference to a swift victory he accomplished in the Battle of Zela.

At the Louvre, my daughters and I saw the Mona Lisa (the girls were underwhelmed). We saw a gorgeous red living room from Napolean’s apartments. We saw endless Greek statues and artifacts. The moat may have been our favorite experience. (Did you know there remains a massive moat beneath the Louvre—from times past before the site became a museum in 1793?)

The Louvre is an enormous museum, and I showed the girls as much of it as I could before we finished our day there. This was a journey we might not make again. Who knew if we’d ever be back. Tired but happy, we trudged up the last ramp to make our way out of the building.

“Veni, vidi, vici!” I said.

My little Sara smiled mischievously and bantered back, “We came, we saw, IT conquered!”

That’s the Louvre. It’s not for the faint-of-museum-heart.

The humorous response made by my daughter is not alone in the world of veni, vidi, vici. The phrase has been used and modified many times, including, as Wikipedia tells us, in poetry:

The title of French poet Victor Hugo’s Veni, vidi, vixi (‘I came, I saw, I lived’), written after the death of his daughter Leopoldine at age 19 in 1843, uses the allusion with its first verse: J’ai bien assez vécu…(‘I have lived quite long enough…’)”

This year’s annual theme at Tweetspeak is Journeys, and we thought it would be fun to kick off the theme with a little veni, vidi, vici. Whether serious like Victor Hugo or amusing like my daughter, we hope you’ll begin our 2024 Journeys together with a poem.

Try It: Veni, Vidi, Vici Prompt

Write a poem that uses either the Latin or the English, to tell of a journey. You can structure your poem in any way you like, but here’s our simple formula if you want to go simple:

Poem Title

I came…
…
…

I saw…
…
…

I conquered [or lived, or breathed, or whatever]
…
…

Our Sample Poem

The Louvre

We came on a grey day
to see what Paris
might tell us
in art.

We saw Mona, smiling (barely)
and the Greeks (barely!) waving swords.
There were no bears, per se,
except the endless galleries
which required stamina
you never thought that art
could ask so deeply of,
from your whole body—
and your heart.

“IT conquered,” my little daughter said.

And isn’t that a bit of what
art can do?

(Not such a bad thing,
if the colorful conquering is really
about our soul’s survival.)

We went, we saw, we’d go
again.

—L.L. Barkat

Photo by Dushawn Jovic, Creative Commons, via Unsplash.

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L.L. Barkat

L.L. Barkat is the Managing Editor of Tweetspeak Poetry and the author of six books for grown-ups and four for children, including the popular 'Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing.' Her poetry has appeared on the BBC and at NPR, VQR, and The Best American Poetry.

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