formative poets (Patreon)

hello!! below is a rundown of the poets that were touchstones in my creative u̶p̶h̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶t̶r̶e̶k̶ ̶t̶o̶w̶a̶r̶d̶s̶ ̶o̶b̶l̶i̶v̶i̶o̶n̶  journey. i don't see this as a finished process or myself as a finished product...but these were the poetic supports of my childhood

edgar allan poe

my day one!! my goth emcee. my good time boy

studied in seventh grade, my teacher was like ok...after the weekend we're going to start a unit that's kind of disturbing so prepare yourselves and i was just. foaming at the mouth

the culmination of a childhood spent preoccupied with the world's darkness and suffering and nightmares of the body and human bondage...and now here is all that but respected, apart of the curriculum, the literary canon...hoo boy

the pit and the pendulum, the cask of amontillado, the tell-tale heart..i read all these over and over and think of them often

he was also really into dreams which resonated with me

so taken by the rhythm of his poetry...i memorized the raven and annabel lee so i could hum them to myself when i was bored

so much comfort in his work even now. love this guy

e. e. cummings

first time i was made to think deeply about how the way a poem is presented visually communicates what it is...i loved the shirking of traditional forms, how playful and experimental the language was

took so much from him....first line titles, the lowercase, parentheses

was young and desperately horny so his more romantic works resonated a lot

i have the last two lines from when life is quite through with tattooed on my arm

kahlil gibran

i read the prophet when i was 17 when my favorite english teacher gifted it to me for my graduation

the feeling of someone believing in me well enough to give me specific materials was….transcendent. do the english teachers know their impact on weird precocious loners. i’m not sure they do

as you can imagine i read that book very very very closely

text that feels holy, dealing with universal aspects of the human condition

reread it recently and it was so fun to see what i'd underlined, my own burgeoning philosophical obsessions beamed in from the past...about connection and love and evil, how its potential is the same in us all

a profound example of something hitting because you read it at the right time under the right circumstances...i do not think this would have the same impact on me now hahah

ada limón

spillin over with natural imagery...made me realize that was important to me in my own work

the experience of reading some of her poems feels like those bowl slides at waterparks where you get shot out into this massive slippery expanse and then slowly slowly round and round you get funnelled through to a small inevitability...like the camera shifts focus and suddenly you see the answer was sitting in the foreground the whole time...loved that sensation and strive to replicate it in my work..satisfying poetic narrative

made me see the power of a killer final line

tracy k. smith

great companion to limón's work, smith in life on mars does with space what limon does with nature...gave clarity to me writing sweetdark..space-as-nature

at a time where i felt introspective to a fault her work gave context for how i could apply those matters of the soul to larger worldly affairs, pop culture

kim addonizio

very feminine and candid and sexy

especially in what is this thing called love – resonated with the like ‘hot poet’ posturing, thought it was fun for a writer to like, intentionally make the reader attracted to them..took this into closer baby closer

hera lindsay bird

single-handedly changed the way i think about poetry and the way that i write it

she gave me permission to be kinda stupid and gross and funny…so unabashedly ridiculous and irreverent but genius all the same, first time an observation has ever annoyed me because it was so clever

even her visuals i was like. taking those. mine now

i found her when i was 23 or 24 so she genuinely gave me what feels like one of the final foundational pieces of my creative identity