03-22-2014, 07:22 AM
Interesting think-point. Who inspires me? Too many to name, both in the public and personal sphere. Same for poets and specific poems.
But, upon further thought, I was very struck/influenced by these poets/wordsmiths, by something quite particular in their work, something that became personally significant to me, stuck with me ever since...
--The Shakespearean soliloquy. It's performance poetry at its best. You can actually see/hear consciousness begetting consciousness in the most illuminating, dramatic, and eloquent of ways. I can't escape the idea of the soliloquy.
--Rilke's Duino Elegies. But more for the mesmeric tone/quality of them than anything else. He had a way of poetic expression that made you feel as if he was speaking to you and nobody else. At least to me, that is.
--Whitman's enlargening and mythologizing of the self. Kind of that "the kingdom of heaven is within you" thing. You are everything, of the same substance of all from the beginning to the end of time.
--Dante's Divine Comedy. The ultimate poetic schemer. That idea of the poet as the cartographer of the soul. I'm into that Gnostic/Kabbalahistic notion of the fallen and shattered god, of putting Humpty-Dumpty back together again.
--Yeats. Just cause. (Yes, I kissed his gravestone lol)
But, upon further thought, I was very struck/influenced by these poets/wordsmiths, by something quite particular in their work, something that became personally significant to me, stuck with me ever since...
--The Shakespearean soliloquy. It's performance poetry at its best. You can actually see/hear consciousness begetting consciousness in the most illuminating, dramatic, and eloquent of ways. I can't escape the idea of the soliloquy.
--Rilke's Duino Elegies. But more for the mesmeric tone/quality of them than anything else. He had a way of poetic expression that made you feel as if he was speaking to you and nobody else. At least to me, that is.
--Whitman's enlargening and mythologizing of the self. Kind of that "the kingdom of heaven is within you" thing. You are everything, of the same substance of all from the beginning to the end of time.
--Dante's Divine Comedy. The ultimate poetic schemer. That idea of the poet as the cartographer of the soul. I'm into that Gnostic/Kabbalahistic notion of the fallen and shattered god, of putting Humpty-Dumpty back together again.
--Yeats. Just cause. (Yes, I kissed his gravestone lol)
You can't hate me more than I hate myself. I win.
"When the spirit of justice eloped on the wings
Of a quivering vibrato's bittersweet sting."
"When the spirit of justice eloped on the wings
Of a quivering vibrato's bittersweet sting."