(Source) Bob Dylan was and is a huge influence on my writing. I see language, poetry, movement, stillness and mystery through some strange alchemy of music and image. The compelling mad draw into art—half real, half imagined was first found in his songs. A rebel disguised, an endless guise, a loss of self, a finding of self, and maybe the paradox is found there and lost there.
We all have our influences. The Beats had theirs. The Moderns theirs. Postmoderns point to William Carlos Williams. I like T.S. Eliot, Bob Dylan, Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and several contemporary poets as well.
It’s good to have influences, but it’s better to keep them in check. Don’t let your influences control you. Know them. Be conscious of them. But don’t let them take over. It’s better, if you can, to have more than one so that your poetry doesn’t end up being a mirror or copy of the influence. You don’t want someone else comparing you too harshly to your influences. They may say good things about Dylan, but if you sound too much like Dylan they won’t say good things about you.
The above snippet from Chicana Poetics is beautiful prose. Sheryl Luna obviously knows how to put quill to scroll. The “compelling mad draw into art” is a kaleidoscope of influence. To escape it is to fall off the canvas. Have your influences, sure, but don’t let the influences paint you. You take them and paint the world to come.
The thing about influences is their plurality, you take a bit from this writer and a bit from that and add a bit of yourself and a bit of what’s going on around you and the next thing you know you’ve found your own style.
My earliest influence was Philip Larkin – virtually all the poetry I was exposed to as a child was British – but once I’d left school I discovered the Americans and in particular William Carlos Williams; later I became a devotee of Beckett but it wasn’t till I was in my mid thirties I ran across Richard Brautigan in a charity shop in Saltcoats. My most recent discovery has been the Norwegian Erlend Loe who has already inspired two poems.
Jim, I think you’re right. Influences are things that change over time. One day it might be X and next year, or next decade, it might be Y. My earliest influence was Edgar Allan Poe. He still is an influence to some degree, but because I’ve moved on to other influences more recently, Poe is more of a “past” influence that still beckons from time to time.
This post caught my eye, Allen. Recently, an acquaintance was aghast when I mentioned I don’t read the works of other poets because I don’t want to be influenced by their work. I then reassured this person that I have a small collection of poetry books that I haven’t read yet. Laughter ensued. Truth be known, when I was a teenager I think I read just about everything by Kahlil Gibran. I was fascinated by his work. (And see? No influence rubbed off on me at all
Then came (don’t laugh!) Rod McKuen. I think I was intrigued by the personal tone of his work. Over the years I’ve read a number of poems by Emily Dickinson and Dorothy Parker (whom I adore). I plan on reading all the poetry books I’ve accumulated over the years when I’m an old raisin and wearing purple.
Janet, I think you should read other poets. Influence is not bad.
Purple? Are you a queen?