I was thinking the other night of sketching out a "family tree" of sorts of poets influence. Perhaps it would look more like a corporate flow chart. The idea would be to start connecting major poets by influence. I imagine this is not at all an original idea and I am sure somewhere, someone else has undertaken such a project. None the less, embarking on this could be quite educational.
I've read several biographical accounts of Sylvia Plath over the past few years and I am reading yet another one presently. It is interesting to see some of the long and deep lineage of close friendships and influences that even span generations. In the case of Plath, there is even a significant American-Euro connection of poets.
Certainly such connections bring with them at times some influence upon the individual work of a writer. Just as what we read (since for the most part, we read what we like) tends to give us some influence that creeps into our work at times.
Tag: Poetry
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
What number are you?
The U.S. Department of Labor assigns a 9 digit code to identify most professions. The number131067042 is the number assigned to designate Poets.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Progress
"What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books." ~Sigmund Freud, 1933
This is almost funny. However, I don't suppose we've come much further since 1933.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Midwest Poet Series Review
On Thursday, I attended a reading at Rockhurst University by Laura Kasichke. This was one of the Midwest Poets Series readings that have over the years attracted the likes of Billy Collins, W.S. Merwin, C.D. Wright, Sharon Olds, Li-Young Lee, among others.
I read a short novel last fall written by Kasischke when I was unable to turn up one of her poetry books at the Library. The remarkable thing about the book was not so much the plot as it was the language she used. He writing was so vivid with imagery that I know that her poetry just had to be awesome. I was not disappointed.
Kasischke has published six books of poetry in addition to three novels. She is a Pushcart Prize winner as well as the Elmer Holmes Bobst Award for Emerging Writers, the Alice Fay DiCastagnola Award, and has earned fellowships by the Ragdale Foundation, McDowell Colony, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Presently she teaches at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
What draws me to her poetry is the manner in which she transforms the common everydayness of events and things into mystical imagery to tell a story. Her words, even in the throngs of commonality are strong enough to pry your attention away from your own everyday life.
I read a short novel last fall written by Kasischke when I was unable to turn up one of her poetry books at the Library. The remarkable thing about the book was not so much the plot as it was the language she used. He writing was so vivid with imagery that I know that her poetry just had to be awesome. I was not disappointed.
Kasischke has published six books of poetry in addition to three novels. She is a Pushcart Prize winner as well as the Elmer Holmes Bobst Award for Emerging Writers, the Alice Fay DiCastagnola Award, and has earned fellowships by the Ragdale Foundation, McDowell Colony, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Presently she teaches at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
What draws me to her poetry is the manner in which she transforms the common everydayness of events and things into mystical imagery to tell a story. Her words, even in the throngs of commonality are strong enough to pry your attention away from your own everyday life.
Friday, February 03, 2006
All of my selves tend to agree...
"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." ~E.L. Doctorow
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