Jamie Townsend: part two

What poets changed the way you thought about writing?

I start first as a reader and in fact didn’t start a regular writing practice until I was a senior in High School. Reading poetry is still the number one fuel for writing my own, so I am seldom in a moment of sustained writing without also reading a variety of things at the same time.

Poets who really changed my conception of what poetry could do started with reading people like Charles Olson and George Oppen. Discovering these writers lead me to apply for the writing graduate program at Naropa University, where there were an abundance of classes were specifically focused on contemporary experimental writers (I love their commitment to teaching poets who were/are still actively writing, younger writers with a sometimes slim publishing history, and supporting underrepresented individuals and communities within poetry world). Naropa introduced me to New Narrative writing, which has subsequently become a central influence on my work. Also, while I was a student there I studied with Bhanu Kapil, Anselm Hollo, and Bobbie Louise Hawkins, among others, who introduced me to the New York School and the Berkeley Renaissance. Today I still read a lot of writers within those eras, particularly James Schuyler, Tim Dlugos, Hannah Weiner, Bernadette Mayer, Lewis Warsh, Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, etc. 

Moving to Oakland 6 years ago helped me immensely in connecting with a group of younger writers, among whom are some of my favorite contemporary writers: Ivy Johnson, Sara Larsen, Wendy Trevino, Lauren Levin, Laura Woltag, Angel Dominguez, Ted Rees, Oki Sogumi. I tend to like writers who start from personal inquiry/narrative and use that to connect to larger systemic social issues or concerns; a lot of Bay Area writing fits this mold.

If I were to pick one poet who is my main source of inspiration as a writer it would have to be John Wieners. If I were to pick two I would add Kevin Killian.