twenty influences on my writing

             
                                        
                                       
were not 20 books as such, but were collections   
mostly in the form of anthologies.  Still, I'm  
going to just sputter along here instead doing  
any research to get the details right.         
                                              
01  nursery rhymes, especially "Mary Had . . . ."
      which I've used as a base several times      
      ex.: Mary had a little lamb,               
            and Charlie had some beef.             
                                               
02  In our house was a small print single book    
      edition of Shakespeare's works.  Unlike    
      Mr. Z, I have never read all of what he   
      (the 17th earl(?)) wrote.  I tended to   
      read certain poems and plays over and    
      over.                                     
                                              
03  In our house was a set of E. A. Poe's works.
      Never read all of those either, but I did    
      discover that he wrote humorous stories.               
                                                      
04  I was 11 or 12 when I attempted to write my   
      first poem.  It was about the Milky Way   
      because at that time I thought I wanted    
      to be an astrophysicist.                    
                                                 
05  In high school the desire/need to attempt to   
      write poems grew, but that school was a   
      Roman Catholic one outside a small and    
      mostly conservative Fox River Valley city,
      and I didn't aggressively scour libraries   
      or magazines for poems, but somehow the   
      first poet I tried to learn from through  
      an effort at imitation was Charles Péguy.   
                                                      
06  Did find out about a national high school    
      poetry contest.  Sent in my first sonnet.   
      Got an honorable mention, as I recall, &   
      it was published in that contest's book.   
      Am sure I read most of the poems in that  
      book, but the book at some point wisely   
      disappeared.                                 
                                                 
07  Then for one year/ I studied at the physical   
      Marquette University.  While there, two   
      books by Alan Paton influenced me, and I   
      wrote a freedom poem for Southern Africa   
      which was partly influenced by the drum  
      rhythms Vachel Lindsay used.            
                                                
08  During my second semester I took an English   
      class taught by a Jesuit.  My term paper     
      was on Dante's Divine Comedy.  I wrote  
      a 9-line prologue for my paper, using a      
      difficult rhyme scheme I think I invented.   
                                                   
09  Further, that teacher told us that anyone   
      who had poems accepted by the Marquette  
      Journal, the student magazine, would get  
      an A for the course.  So I got three of   
      mine accepted, but I am here to tell you   
      that a poem by another student, a student
      I am pretty sure was in the dorm wing I  
      was in, is far better than any of mine.   
      "Pride's Offering to the Gods" is its title.
                                                 
10  During my shortened two years in a Jesuit   
      Novitiate near St. Bonafacius, Minnesota,   
      Gerard Manley Hopkins and John Keats.     
                                               
11  Forgot to mention I took Latin in high school  
      and so Arma virumque cano preceded and may  
      have been why I chose to read Dante.             
                                                    
12  Then it was three years at Wisconsin State   
      College–Oshkosh where two of my teachers  
      were Iowa Workshop graduates.  Oddly I      
      don't remember what poets we studied,        
      but my teachers encouraged me to seek       
      admission to the Iowa program.                       
                                                  
13  At Iowa circumstances kept me isolated from   
      other student writers; but George Starbuck,  
      who was my mentor my first year there, was  
      the sole reason I made it through.         
                                                    
14  Marvin Bell was my second year mentor; but   
      W. D. Snodgrass, and fellow students such as  
      Phil Hey and James Tate and Michael Dennis  
      Browne, and hill courses like the one that  
      introduced me to Ben Jonson and highlighted my   
      trauma-caused (due to my being too sensitive)
      lack of self-confidence// held sway.             
                                                   
15  And yes there was Lowell, Bly, Wright, Plath, 
      and numerous anthologies; and I do not know   
      what order all these came in; but T. S. Eliot    
      had been and remained important to me.         
                                                   
16  Dylan Thomas was another early influence, and  
      Auden and his circle, and E. A. Robinson, 
      and Whitman, and Dickinson, and Homer and  
      beyond.  Had taken a Milton course when I  
      was an undergrad.  Even Edith Sitwell.      
                                                 
17  Once had the original Donald Allen anthology,
      and the Rothenberg anthologies, and Kelly  
      and Leary's A Controversy of Poets, and the  
      first edition of The Princeton Encyclopedia 
      of Poetics.  I read far and wide, yet there
      were many I was not aware of.                      
                                                      
18  I did have Ginsberg's Howl.  I do have a  
      selection of Lorca's poems.  Tom Montag    
      gifted me with a copy of Lorine Niedecker
      Collected Works.                          
                                                   
19  Even though I have a poor rote memory, poems 
      and lines from poems are more important to   
      me than books of poems.  Among the poems I     
      have a special feeling for is:   
      "The Ship of Death" by D. H. Lawrence.                       
                                                 
20  Unlike many, I am less attracted to jazz than
      to classical music, and I am not into movies.
      Guess I'm not with it, but I'm not against it
      either.                                       
                                                     
-- So, given that for 20+ years poets and poem-making   
   were incidental interests, I am playing catch-up,
   an endeavor I know is totally futile. --

                       
                                                 
                                                   
                                        a toy ot!
                                                 
                                                 
                                               
                                               
                                             
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