I don't know. I just can't think of any, or maybe I can't think that
way. every novel & every poetry collection I've ever read or will ever
read has had/will have an effect on my thinking, & so many will also
have an effect on my writing. I mean, what I've read that has most
affected my POETRY is of course books of POETRY: by Thomas, Williams,
Lorca, Hughes.
I suppose I could say that Calvino's "Invisible Cities" taught me
about symbolism & mood, that Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" taught me
about stream (or scream, as I first typed) of consciousness & the way
things are sometimes processed by the mind, or that Joyce's "Portrait
of the Artist" struck a chord because some of it spoke to me as an
individual as well as a writer, while the form spoke to my writer's
sensibilities. but I don't consider any of these books to have been
central or even directly important to the way I write, or don't write.
I think this is a question that is a little easy to misunderstand, to
reply to with a list of 'good books' as opposed to 'personally,
poetically expansive books'.
KS
On 29/07/07, andrew burke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Just a few days ago, Ron Silliman posted a comment about a book
> comprised of lists and comments by poets - as per the following:
>
> (QUOTE) 'When, in editing the first volume of Poet's Bookshelf, Peter
> Davis got some 81 poets to respond to his request for a list of
>
> 5-10 books that have been most "essential" to you, as a poet
>
> and asked his respondents further to "Please write some comments about
> your list," he got an awesomely, if predictably, wide range of
> reactions.' (END QUOTE)
>
> I would be very interested in hearing from p'etcers on their lists of
> "essential books" - hopefully with comments. I'm still thinking about
> mine - the list seems to change daily >g< but some remain stable. I'll
> post my Sunday list this evening.
>
>
>
> Andrew
> http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
> http://www.inblogs.net/hispirits
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/aburke/
>
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