Most Influential Poet(s)

I know some of my most influential are Dylan Thomas, Emily Dickinson, and Longfellow. What are yours? How have they affected your writing?

*Moved to Poetry Discussion*

Tennyson, Heaney.

I always liked Seuss.

He rocks.

Go Griff... Suess all the way, he actually was the author of the first 5 or so books I read... (when I was 3)
And then... I also like Robert Burns, and there is this one poem called THE LESSON OF THE MOTH although it's all uncaps because it was just this lovely poem about a cockaroach who wrote poetry... yeah...
Suess, Robert Burns, Don Marquais *I think* and... Yeah, that's all I can think of now.

Shel Silverstein

If any writer got me to start reading poetry, it was him. I mean, he has these fun lines and everything that don't necessarily rhyme, but are awesome anyway, but when I read many of them now, I am struck by the depth.

Homer

I love the Odyssey! I might have a freakish obsession for this epic, but... well... love is a very good word to say here.

Robert Lewis Stevenson

My grandfather gave me a book full of poetry by him. I would read a little bit each night when I was little.

Emily Dickensen

Just getting into her work, but it is awesome!

Shakespeare

His sonnets are absolutely marvelous and makes me completely jealous.

Whoever wrote the psalms

Because the psalms are awesome.

All of these poets are good and helped me in my storywriting by showing me how to use symbolism, word choice, and other things to say what I need to say to make things pretty.

Allen Ginsberg, William Carlos Williams, William Shakespeare, Charles Bukowski, Walt Whitman, Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan (yes he IS a poet). That's all I can think of right now.

to add to the above: EE Cummings, Edgar Allan Poe, Billy Collins, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Keats, Percy Shelley, Wole Soyinka, Isobel Dixon, Charles Mungoshi, Seamus Heaney.

How they effect me...erm. Just take a look at my movement of my poetry I have dubbed 'my bizarre period'. Lots of Cumming's like structure.

Browning, she writes love poetry that I can get into.

Poe, was the writer, who after reading his works at a very young age, I said: Hey I want to do that.

Definitely EE Cummings.

I need to read Billy Collins, I haven't, and i find that sad.

A few of my friends really got me back into poetry, two of whom are members here: Crysi and Terrywn.

Shakespeare is like God. His plays sound like poetry; I love it all.

Poe creeps me out, but he was the first poet I read other than Sesus and Silverstein.

On my to read list: Cummings. I've only read bits and pieces of his work, mostly stuff I've "borrowed" from my friend taking a poetry course this year.

Goodness! I almost forgot Tennyson! The first poem I consciously thought about writing was based off of one of his.. forget which one, now. Longfellow scares me greatly. I mean, it's like.. this. But yes, I love reading poetry, when I get the chance.

Pablo Neruda and Federico Garcia Lorca are two of my personal favorites, though I don't know how influential they've been in American culture, as they are both Spanish. Walt Whitman and Lord Alfred Tennyson, and Robert Frost (why hasn't anyone mentioned him?!?), and T.S. Eliot. "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" is one of my favorites. Edgar Allen Poe (love him with all my heart, though "Tell-Tale Heart" was my favorite of his, and indeed not a poem...), John Keats, Dr. Seuss, and David (I agree with you wholeheartedly, Snoink!) The Psalms (and while David didn't write them all, he is the most well known Psalmist) are some of the most beautiful poetry I've heard in my life. My favorite is Psalm 91, and that author is anonymous, though. There's also fantastic poetry in Isaiah, and I'm particularly fond of the poem of the fall of Babylon, found in Isaiah 13-14...my favorite line being 14:12-14:

"How you have fallen from heaven,
O star of the morning, son of the dawn!
You have been cut down to the earth,
You who have weakened the nations!
But you said in your heart,
'I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God,
and I will sit on the mount of assembly
In the recesses of the north.'"

So beautiful, *wipes tear* Sorry for being long winded, but I get excited over good poetry, especially Hebrew poetry. How I wish I could write it well. *sighs*

-Sarah

I feel so stupid for not remembering Neruda or Lorca. E gads, if Franco wasn't dead I shoot him myself. Lorca es Dios de la pluma!

Sarah, just out of curiosity have you seen the movie Il Postino? - if not I highly recommend it.

Also Plath and DiPrima, and Ferlinghetti. Hmm... Pound. Both Rossetti's. W.B Yeats, definitely is one, I adore He Wishes for the Clothes of Heaven. Carson, Boland, Montague. Basho.

I got to do a play by Lorca! Bodas de sangre. It was awesome. Such pretty lines!

Why do you think many playwrights are excellent poets on the side?

Playwrights know how people interact. They know characters. And they know dialogue. Poetry is dialogue excised from conversations, and put onto the canvas of life. It is dialogue without a speaker, or perhaps everyone speaks it.

No, I haven't. I need to. *Jots down on list of movies to see* Ugh, speaking of...I have an oral proficiency exam I have to go to in a few minutes.

I thought about Plath, I like "Madgirl's Love Song" but I'm not a huge fan of hers. Influentially, though, I suppose she had a bit to do with the emo/goth movement.

Are all playwrights good poets? T.S. Eliot was both. Hrmmm...I back up timjim here...there are visible emotions in both plays and poems, layers of human character, and poetry is a lot like dialogue in a sense, though I've never thought of it like that before...ever. I love looking at things differently! So much fun.

Texting is the devil, though.

-Sarah