" ____ haunts my writing!"

wordsheff · Jan 12, 2007

For me it's three people:

Wallace Stevens: the beautiful and odd language. I love it. And his themes draw me doubly to him.

Shakespeare: the clarity (after reading him for a couple of years), the linguistic inventiveness. I think of him whenever I can't find a word or think I'm muddling up my poem trying to get too complex.

T.S. Eliot: the poet who made me want to write poetry. His erudition and allusion after allusion all adding up to this grand portrait of alienation, etc, it made me want to read everything he alluded to. Then it made me want to allude to everything I read. Luckily I have finally learned to leave the heavy stuff alone, but I still, everytime I write, remember how T.S. creating meaning in so many different ways.

I would say The Snowman, Prufrock, and everything I've ever read by Shakespeare are always on my shoulders when I'm tryin to put down something on paper.

Word

kdnxdr · Jan 12, 2007

Trying to grab hold of a concept that defies grabbing hold of.

and

My ignorance of the rules of poetry.

moblues · Jan 12, 2007

While not poetry, per se: H.P. Lovecraft. Most who have read my work wouldn't be surprised.

By kdnxdr
My ignorance of the rules of poetry.

You are very far from ignorant in this genre. Very far.

Also, I don't believe in rules. Studying jazz theory (Berkley Method) taught me how to break the rules.

Mike

William Haskins · Jan 13, 2007

mortality

kborsden · Jan 13, 2007

where to begin?

death, unrequited love, darkness, anger, loneliness, etc....

my life is a vicious circle, filled by mostly misery, that I find hard to break.

wordsheff · Jan 13, 2007

Whoa I meant which POETS haunt your writing, but these are some good replies!

To Kbord and Haskins: how can those things not, right?

To Moblues: Jazz is probably closest to how I see poetry, from what I know of jazz. Just riffing, partly conscientiously, variations on a single theme. And Lovecraft...well, wow.

Kd: concepts are impossible to grab by the heart, aim for the fingers or toes, meaning, if you don't try so hard for the grand poem and use the small stuff, it might lead to the grandest poem. As for rules, to each his own. See what works.

Good stuff, I enjoyed reading the responses so far.

Any particular poets, to any of you?

WS

William Haskins · Jan 13, 2007

ah...
30 years ago, it would have probably been poe.
20 years ago, it would have probably been rimbaud.
10 years ago, it would have probably been dylan thomas.
nowadays, i don't know. some confluence of auden, graves and bukowski, i would imagine.

dclary · Jan 13, 2007

No individual person, though there may always be flavors of whoever I've read last stuck to my creativity pot, seasoning it.

My writing tends always to return to the theme of redemption. It is either an eternal thank you, or desperate hope, depending on where I am at any given time.

kborsden · Jan 13, 2007

In that case, I'd probably have to say Poe, and maybe Dylan Thomas.

Ganesha · Jan 13, 2007

in my case I'd say Mary Oliver. Listen, oh please listen... yes definitely Mary

wordsheff · Jan 13, 2007

Mary Oliver's Primitive is such a great volume!

Just so you all know, the COMPLETE POE, stories AND poems AND novel AND essays, is at Barnes and Noble right now for...

12.95!!!!!!!! That is US Gold Standard Cash

So, just thought I'd let ya know.

ddgryphon · Jan 13, 2007

Anne Sexton
Sylvia Plaith
Edgar Allen Poe
TS Eliot

wordsheff · Jan 13, 2007

Oh yeah I forgot two more:

Sylvia (thanks DD) and Robert Lowell. How could I forget these two?

ddgryphon · Jan 15, 2007

KTC:

I didn't put him down but Leonard Cohen very much affects my work--as does Jose Garcia Lorca--just because I forgot him too.

kborsden · Jan 16, 2007

wordsheff said:
Just so you all know, the COMPLETE POE, stories AND poems AND novel AND essays, is at Barnes and Noble right now for...

I bought that years ago, I think I was 16 at the time. It's a great read with much social comment.

Godfather · Jan 21, 2007

uncertainty haunts my writing.

as regards writers...

ginsberg in it's blatancy
kerouac in it's spontaniety
dylan thomas in it's metaphor

i guess those are all things i strive for. and bobby dylan is an endless source of inspiration for me.

Brilliana · Feb 15, 2007

Theodore Roethke
W.B Yeats
Charles Bukowski
Anne Sexton
Dylan Thomas (I was so obsessed with him as a teenager that if he hadn't been dead ten years before I was born, I'd have stalked him)

jst5150 · Feb 15, 2007

Paul Simon
David Baerwald
Sting
Eddie Van Halen
Joe Satriani

ee cummings

A Fresca.

wordsheff · Feb 18, 2007

update: Sexton, Ai, the old Japanese poets, Yehuda Amechi (sp?), the old Japanese poets, Robert Bly, Jane Kenyon, Yusef K.

poetic peony · Feb 28, 2007

My dear friend and mentor from Vitamin F, Chris Clayton
Helen Steiner Rice
Erma Bombeck --even though she wasn't a poet that I know of
Dave Cousins
Justin Hayward
Dr.Seuss
Poe

Lots of lyricists are my influence. I dabble all over.

LimeyDawg · Mar 2, 2007

A.E.Housman and Pablo Neruda, when we are talking poetry. Not Shakespeare so much, although I've often been accused of it...

Steppe · Apr 12, 2008

Two great German poets- Johannes Bobrowski, " Shadow Lands ",
Eng. trans. Ruth and Matthew Mead, Amazon.com.

Peter Huchel, " A Thistle in his Mouth ", Eng. trans. Henry Beissel.

So much imagery and so close to the land of my birth in discription.

temerity · Apr 13, 2008

Eamon Grennan. I love his work, and part of me wanted to apply to Vassar College because I heard that's where he teaches (haha, um, I didn't--only because that would be completely irrational).

Other influences / role models (though I need to read more poetry in general, and have just begun to discover the great poets)--Neruda, Rita Dove. This girl at my school who's going to be the next poet laureate, I swear, and has already given an actual poetry reading at 17. I just checked out an anthology by Oliver, too, so the list keeps growing!

Common themes: death, loss, recovery.
...hopefully the poems will brighten up soon

Dichroic · Apr 14, 2008

A.D. Hope. John Donne. Edna St. Vincent Millay. Kipling and Service.

Also Peg L. Duthie, though in that case her comments/blogging have probably influenced me as much or more than her actual poems.

CDarklock · Apr 15, 2008

Lovecraft haunts my writing.

I'll be writing along quite happily, and then some sesquipedalean cyclopean monstrosity shambles its immense bulk out of some otherworldly realm to misshapenly render an ululating...

Shift, control, up arrow, delete.

" ____ haunts my writing!"

One of the most important people in the world

poet

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King of Sloth Town

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back door man

Brilliana

Vorpal Comics. Weekly Podcast. Twitch Artist. Vet

may b playn 2 a dif drumr

Scars are poems too

...

desperately deadlined!

that's di-CROW-ick

Yes!