What
poets changed the way you thought about writing?
There is a long list. Earle Birney got me into the game, I’d
already been writing some very bad poetry but when I heard Birney’s “David”
everything changed. Then Gwendolyn
MacEwen. Shortly after that I discovered
Leonard Cohen and was transfixed. When I
first read Sir Jack Kerouac I was hypnotized.
Then around 1975 I heard Tom Waits for the first time and I remember the
exact moment. I was in a small hotel
room in Thunder Bay watching American Public Television in the middle of the
night. Tom Waits introduced me to the
idea of Charles Bukowski. Al Purdy was
in the mix early along with Alden Nowlan.
The truth is that every time I read a good poet
it has an effect on my work. Most
recently I’ve been in correspondence with the American poet David Clewell,
former Poet Laureate for Missouri. He
not only recommends that I read certain people, he sends me books that I have
to read, sometimes he sends them with post-it notes telling me which order to
read the books in. It has been, and
continues to be a steep learning curve but it is absolutely inspiring. Clewell introduced me to David Lee. David Lee is the best poet in America as far
as this cowboy is concerned. But there
are some other monsters, lately I’ve been reading Albert Goldbarth, Dave Etter,
Campbell McGrath, Sue Goyette, and damn, have a brain sputter.
Charles Bukowski, more than any one other
writer, influenced how I think about the world of poetry, but he wasn’t a very
nice cat. As much as I love Bukowski I
don’t share his ethos that poetry is more important than people. Sometimes it is hard to reconcile a poet and
their life against their body of work.
And then there’s Raymond Carver.
First time I read his work my heart stopped.
I can’t wait for the next poet to shake me up,
bite into my way of thinking, nudge me forward.
No comments:
Post a Comment