Are there rules to this list? I started reading the Old Testament in
Hebrew--Genesis was our primer--in first grade. Somewhere in third
grade, I think it was, I had to translate (don't ask) Genesis 12.
God's command to Abram is the beginning of the Jewish national epic,
and it's also in Hebrew pretty great poetry. I think that evening of
struggling with the text was the first time I was overwhelmed by
language as music. The daily infusion of a couple of hours of really
great stuff--by the time I was 12 and left Yeshiva we had made our
way through the OT, much of it more than once--was I think
determinitive of my vocation, such as it is. Separated (very
gratefully, I should add) from that environment, in HS I tried
translating Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs, out of adolescent
angst and pure love of the language. I did a terrible job of it, but
there are worse ways for a young poet--I started writing when I was
11--to spend his or her time (I got to the worse ways a little later,
for which I am eternally grateful).
In grade school I was already reading my mother's copy of the 1944
edition I think it was of Untermeyer's anthology Modern British and
American Poetry, and she had a massive anthology of British Romantic
poetry, now lost with all the publishing details, that I also tried
to drown in. So those should be added to the list.
And I forgot to add Basho, Narrow Road to the Deep North (my first
version was the penguin), which profoundly influenced my practice,
but well after the other books on this list.
Mark
At 10:40 AM 7/30/2007, you wrote:
>In that case, can I add the Anglican Prayer Book and Psalter to mine?
>
>joanna
>
>----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 3:24 PM
>Subject: Re: influential books
>
>
>>The Old Testament, first and foremost, so much a presence that I
>>forgot to notice it.
>>At 10:07 AM 7/30/2007, you wrote:
>>>Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
>>>
>>>Ben Jonson
>>>
>>>Marvell
>>>
>>>Moby Dick
>>>
>>>Mallarme
>>>
>>>Max Jacob
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