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catalinamoon
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The Shores of Alone

0 posted 2001-06-03 08:21 PM


I'd be interested to know which poet of old most inspired or influenced you to write.

To start, I am going with Rod McKuen..
but Merrit Malloy is a close second.

Further back,
Poe and Longfellow

© Copyright 2001 Sandra - All Rights Reserved
Ron
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1 posted 2001-06-03 09:06 PM


LOL.

When I read Listen to the Warm and Stanyon Street,  circa 1966, the author wasn't yet considered a "poet of old." I still have those same books on a shelf, next to several thin volumes by Peter McWilliams, another author of that era I enjoyed.

The first serious selections I remember reading as a child were by Lewis Carroll and Poe, and I suspect the latter still influences the "sound" of my words.

catalinamoon
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2 posted 2001-06-03 09:27 PM


Hey Ron, I don't think of McKuen as old, either. That was the wrong word. I think I meant published and available to read when we were young. Ha Ha. I have all his books. I like McWilliams too  
Severn
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since 1999-07-17
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3 posted 2001-06-03 10:51 PM


Hmm..poets from the 60's.

Anne Sexton, Frank O'Hara, Sylvia Plath etc..

no contest..

K

Michael
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4 posted 2001-06-03 11:46 PM


Edgar Allan Poe inspired my first "real" attempt at poetry when I was about 15 years old.  I think as far as influence goes, it would be a toss up between he and Lord Byron.


Michael

Poet deVine
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5 posted 2001-06-04 12:36 PM


I'd have to say the Burma Shave signs along the roads of Michigan.


Dopey Dope
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6 posted 2001-06-04 01:03 AM


I don't necessarily dig poets....i like poems. I haven't found a poet with the consistancy to be GREAT in my eyes.


Romy
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since 2000-05-28
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7 posted 2001-06-04 01:22 AM


Maya Angelou, Adrienne Rich and Rita Dove are among my favorites...Dr. Suess is pretty cool too...
Skyfyre
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since 1999-08-15
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Sitting in Michael's Lap
8 posted 2001-06-04 02:45 AM


William Butler Yeats

Simply beautiful stuff ...

... though Shakespeare and Frost are close seconds ... I'm a sucker for a poet with a sharp wit ...    

I also like Auden, when he's not feeling so long-winded.


Linda

[This message has been edited by Skyfyre (edited 06-04-2001).]

Temptress
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9 posted 2001-06-04 03:14 AM




Okay. I read the question..or didn't read it thoroughly. I didn't have any certain poet that influenced me when I was younger. When I first began writing it was just something that came to me. Something I felt I could do and wanted to do.

When I got a little older, I enjoyed whatever was in the literature book during English/Lit class. In college, it was the same.

My favorites now if I had to claim them:

Emily Dickinson and Rainer Maria Rilke  


[This message has been edited by Temptress (edited 06-04-2001).]

Severn
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10 posted 2001-06-04 03:26 AM


Linda - then surely you must appreciate Donne?

K

cherish
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swimming in fairy floss...........
11 posted 2001-06-04 03:37 AM


the poet who MOST inspired me to write...well i could make up sumthing that sounds inspirational and stuff and say that they inspired me to write but i have to say that the poet which got me writing seriously was javier..shooosh dont tell him ok?..i mean yeah i had written a few pieces and stuff but i was never really serious about it until i met him and read some of his work.yeah im only a teenager and yeah i havent written all that much and yes i LOVE Poe ( bells is my favourite )..but i would be lying if i said that there was another inspirational driving force behind my poetry.
so take a bow dopey..

Packratmike
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since 2001-02-25
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12 posted 2001-06-04 03:38 AM


My brother got me hooked on poetry back in the sixties.  One day he brought home a book of poems by e. e. cummings.  I didn't understand them but was still quite fascinated by them.  He saw my interest and later gave me "The Collected Poems of Robert Service."(I still have that book.)  I loved it and learned a lot from it.  He's a great story telling poet and If you haven't read him, you should check out some of his poems relating to his war experiences...Excellent!

The only other poet I can think of now that I really enjoy is Rod McKuen. I started reading him in the mid-70's and could never get enough of him.  


Joricho
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13 posted 2001-06-04 07:44 AM


I read Wilfred Owen's poem "Dulce et decorem est" when I was about 13 and it changed my life!!
SInce then... BIG influences have been Gerald Manley Hopkins and Donne, Dylan Thomas, Les Murray... I could go on!
But I think I was hooked by AA Milne and Dr Seuss way before then!!!

catalinamoon
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14 posted 2001-06-04 07:47 AM


Thanks everyone. Mike, glad to see someone else mention Rod.  
S

Janet Marie
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since 2000-01-22
Posts 18554

15 posted 2001-06-04 11:45 AM


ooh this is soo cool..I love reading and seeing who likes the same ones I do...
as far as "who influenced me to write"...
I think for me it was more the music that I was listening to as a teen that made me want to pen out the emotions...that and a constant craving for rhyme..but Im sure all my fav poets I have discovered along the way
quietly influenced me, even if i dont write in their "style" but McKuen and Brautigan were heavily read back then too........

Shakespeare (sonnets the most)
Percy Bysshe Shelly
EA Poe
William Butler Yeats
Robert Frost
Rod McKuen
Richard Brautigan
Peter McWilliams

thanks for asking  

brian madden
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since 2000-05-06
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ireland
16 posted 2001-06-04 01:25 PM


Favourite poem is Mirror in February by THomas Kinsella.

I guess my favourite poet is Dylan THomas,
beautiful and intelligent poems written so that even an uneducated person like me can appreciate them.

"difference between love and comfortis that comfort's more reliable and true
Brutal and mocking but always therea crutch for enmity's saddest glare"

Brad
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Jejudo, South Korea
17 posted 2001-06-04 04:50 PM


My mind changes all the time but current favorites:

Seamus Heaney (that hasn't changed)
John Ashbery
Denise Levertov
Derek Walcott

Old guys:
Yeats
Auden
Eliot
some Pound


An old guy who I've recently changed my mind on -- in a positive way:
William Blake

and in a negative way:
Shelly

Guys I don't get:
Wallace Stevens (working on this one)
Gertrude Stein

Brad


PS How about the poets you love to hate?  

Sven
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18 posted 2001-06-04 07:47 PM


one of the first poems that I ever read was Shakespeare's "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?". . . I used to have it memorized. . .

But, the one poet that really made a big impact on me was cummings. . . I discovered him in high school, and was totally amazed by what he could do with just a simple word. . . and what he could do with a lyric. . . somewhere i have never travelled is one of the reasons that I write what I do. . .

Now, I have too many favorites to list. . . Dickinson, cummings, Peter McWilliams, Whitman, E.A. Robinson, Malloy, Dylan Thomas, Garcia Lorca, Octavio Paz. . . my shelves are filled with all sorts of poets and poetry anthologies. . . from Victorian to Modern, Love Poems to Concrete Poems. . . and I like them all. . .  

-----------------------------------------------------------

To the world, you may only be one person. But to one person, you may be the world.

catalinamoon
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19 posted 2001-06-04 08:04 PM


Sven, I love them all too. And the ones I have not read that are mentioned here, I am going to start reading as soon as possible. Thanks everyone for telling me this, it may open new poetic doors for me  
Sandra

walker
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20 posted 2001-06-04 09:20 PM


I love Lord Byron and Garcia Lorca

[This message has been edited by walker (edited 06-04-2001).]

Fading Away
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21 posted 2001-06-16 04:33 PM


Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson were two of the most influential poets for me.

--Marie

hush
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22 posted 2001-06-26 03:54 PM


?? Nobody said Allen Ginsberg yet?

I like Dickinson a lot, W.C. Williams, Jim Morrison, Ani DiFranco, Roger Waters are all great, I think Waters is one of the best song-lyric writers ever. Lucille Clifton is one of my favorites, Isaac Rosenberg and Ishamel Reed are also really awesome.

everything's fine.

scout
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23 posted 2001-06-28 09:35 PM


i was influenced by Poe when i was little, but then everyone started to be in love with poe, and i didn't like being like everyone else, so then i tried finding myself in poetry, and i find my greatest influences in...

Sylvia Plath (i first read Mad Girl's Love Song, and I fell in love with her, she helped me deal with myself during my suicidal years which were so long ago)
Anne Sexton (I read her poem for Sylvia Plath, and i fell in love with her, especially her "the awful rowing towards God" collection, in fact i think i like her more then plath now)
e.e. cummings (i always liked cummings, because he told me that poems don't have rules)
D.H. Lawrence (this guy taught me how meanings can be brought about through short poetry through his pansies)
William Blake (this guy taught me how God can use you to write something so spirit filled)
and finally the Poetry of C.S. Lewis, the guy is one weird Christian, but I totally respect him, because he will always be his own person, he taught me individuality, and that i think is the most important thing in poetry, is to be yourself, to not make it like anyone else's but your own...

xscoutx
"Son of man with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or weep or shed any tears."-Eze.24:16

Marshalzu
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24 posted 2001-06-30 03:56 PM


Rudyard Kipling and Seamus Heaney are my favourites
Sunshine
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25 posted 2001-06-30 04:15 PM


I had loved poetry from childhood...but the poet that made me feel that I could pick up pen and "attempt", was McKuen...[see my post, "Hello, Rod"....]

but Cat...I don't have all his books.  I am currently on a mission to visit used book stores and find his "treasures"...I take my "list" everywhere I go....

I had two at the beginning of the month, given to me some 30 years ago...in the last few weeks, I have picked up six more....

I'm on a roll through his hills and valleys...

and I am taking time to appreciate more poetry and poets all the time...

[This message has been edited by Sunshine (edited 06-30-2001).]

Poeminister
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26 posted 2001-06-30 10:18 PM


I'm always growing more intimate with the works of Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Walter Scott, & Thomas Hardy.  
They are my four favorite.

Brad Majors
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27 posted 2001-07-02 03:06 PM


Mine are EA Poe, Ginsburg, and TS Elliot
Jamie
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Blue Heaven
28 posted 2001-07-04 01:28 AM


Carl Sandburg and Rod Mckuen. I go for walks nearly weekly at what is now the Carl Sandburg National Historic Site, (his last home) and Rod Mckuen once came to my high school and perfomed (in the memory of a classmate who had recently died). So while my choices are influenced by more than just their writing, I still feel they are two of America's best ever.

There is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar.
byron

Fading Away
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29 posted 2001-07-05 10:48 AM


Ani DiFranco was also very influential.
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