Patia Stephens
ENCR 411/Volkman
5/4/06
Final Paper: Influences
When I think of my "poetic influences," what comes immediately to mind is not any particular poet, but rather the sensory world within and around me. Certainly this is true for many other poets, as well. Nature, emotions, friends and loved ones, pets -- these have all been poetic fodder for eons.
Out of lemon flowers
Loosed
On the moonlight, love's
Lashed and insatiable essences,
Sodden with fragrance,
The lemon tree's yellow
Emerges,
The lemons move down
From the tree's planetarium.
-- Pablo Neruda, "A Lemon"
What other poets have given me is the inspiration -- the permission, even -- to fearlessly explore and record these sensory experiences. They have given me the courage to experiment with words, with language, with random thoughts and associations. They have allowed me to break free from the staid old beginning-middle-end, the research paper, the inverted pyramid and the nut graf. Poetry, particularly freeform poetry, is like a brisk breeze coming out of the east. Unexpected. Refreshing.
I am the woman whose flesh
Does not move when she walks,
The nipple-less,
The bloodless, sweatless woman
Who cries copious tears from the pressure
Of all other prohibited secretions.
-- Barbara Kingsolver, "Reveille"
When I was in the seventh grade at Capitola Junior High, a teacher from a university program called California Poets in the Schools came to my English class and presented a week-long session on poetry. What liberation! He gave us assignments to write about colors, feelings -- about things that mattered to a 12-year-old girl like me. Although I was already passionate about reading and talented at writing, poetry captured my imagination. It became a companion and outlet for me during my tumultuous teenage years. I filled notebook after notebook with flowery, tortured poems that I never shared with anyone. Then -- during a chaotic transition from boarding school to the real world, all my notebooks were lost. I never knew where they went. Hopefully, the trash.
Never has your Buick
Found this forward a gear.
-- Richard Hugo
When, at age 17, I began working full time, I left poetry behind. I still sometimes scribbled two- or three-line stanzas in my notebooks and on work orders, but poetry as a practice was forgotten, abandoned. I did not see its relevance to my life. And I rarely understood the poetry I read.
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you -- Nobody -- Too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! They'd advertise -- you know!
-- Emily Dickinson, 288
But as my confidence in writing has blossomed -- as I earned a bachelor's degree 15 years after graduating from high school and then enrolled in a graduate creative writing program -- poetry has become important once again. I've had the leisure to study Shakespeare, Dickinson, Whitman -- to learn how to read a poem. I've rekindled a love of words apart from necessity and structure. I also saw how poetry would enrich the "real" writing I did; how beauty was as important as meaning. I learned to savor the sounds and images of a poem, even if I didn't understand it.
The forward violet thus did I chide:
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love's breath?
-- Shakespeare, Sonnet 99
I like to think that now, or at least, when I'm finished with school, I'll take the time to curl up in a corner of the sofa with a book of poetry, spending a quiet hour with words of beauty, profundity or even absurdity. Perhaps I'll even pick up the pen and write my own, beautiful, profound, absurd poems.
11 Comments:
I suggest you write, my girl.
I know, it's Friday -- but would you submit this at Poetry Thursday? I think they'd really like it.
http://poetrythursday.blogspot.com/
OK, I did, Sharon. Do you think anyone will actually read it? Sixty comments on that post!
hey patia--
however much we may love to write and admire our own writing, i don't think hearing from others ever gets old, so... :) you write beautifully, honestly and profoundly. your vocabulary is broad enough to be expressive, but subtle enough to not distract from the flow of the words. i'm glad i stumbled onto your blog.
Amanda, thank you so much. You have no idea how much I needed to hear that right now.
I am now waiting for some poems from you, Patia.
OK, I did, Sharon. Do you think anyone will actually read it? Sixty comments on that post! ... I read it! (I only read about 4 or 5 from the 60+ on Poetry Thursday ... can't keep up with all of them anymore. When PT first started I did read everyone's Thursday post (can't believe I did but that was in winter, when I wasn't so busy) Anyway, I clicked on your blog because ... I recognized your name from other comments and flickr and your blog ... you live only 2 hours away from me ... i like the way you write anyway!
I love hearing about people's influences. It works for visual arts, too. What a great exercise to focus your purpose, style and voice.
next thursday ....
maureen
yeah, I read it too! I'm really interested in finding out what other people are into wrt poetry. I'm also in a graduate creative writing program. I have the--what you call leisure to read certain poetry that I've always heard and wondered about, and enjoy it. But what I'm really enjoying right now is reading people's pt posts! I find the experience nurturing to my "poetics". hehe. Peace, hope you keep posting at Thursday.
Thanks, Maureen and Susie!
So this means I actually have to write poems for Poetry Thursday now? Yikes. Well, we shall see.
hey, well, you can also post poems that influence you, or that you like...
Learning finally becomes a process of unlearning, if we're lucky. Poetry comes back. We push aside the so-called sophistication, and we are surprised to find ourselves. The wisdom of age and the wisdom of childhood are similar. With that wisdom, poetry comes back!
But it's still a good idea to write a lot of poetry when you're still in your 20s~,:^)
I've always planned to have a second childhood in my forties .... Almost there.
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