What poets changed the way you thought about writing?
Close-reading Emily Dickinson in grad school changed my sense of what language can do. She opens doors in the soul many artists try to open but don’t. Of the soul Dickinson writes, “I've known her — from an ample nation — / Choose One — / Then — close the Valves of her attention — / Like Stone —” The poem ends on an emdash. Certain Words are capitalized. There’s a slant rhyme between “one” and “stone.” But mostly there’s this word: valves. It slows the quatrain to what feels like a decommissioned dam. In 18 words, Dickinson creates a world.
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