There's a whole other category: fellow travelers. I first read
Niedecker in 1970, for instance, and immediately recognized a
soulmate, but I had already klearned and incorporated what she had to
teach, tho she usually does it so well.
Another category: folks one wishes one had been influenced by.
Pretty soon the game devolves into an endless booklist.
At 11:33 AM 7/31/2007, you wrote:
>First loves are a whole different matter. They may have been
>influential at one point, but with a deep landscape to look back on
>some of them seem less important. And one does get a clearer sense
>of one's path to this moment. I loved Yeats, for instance, still do,
>but he leaves little trace in my work of the past 20 years and more,
>except for some of his prose. Sandburg dominated my teenage years.
>Now completely covered by the grass. Olson was crucial, but after a
>bunch of attempts at his way of working he retired to his place
>behind Melville, where I had already learned a lot of what remains
>in my work. Spicer reinforced what I'd learned from the French, etc.
>
>Which is to say, the list of passions is longer than the list of
>dominant influences.
>
>Mark
>
>At 11:24 AM 7/31/2007, you wrote:
>>Probably not, but I chose to just list some of the books of poetry
>>I kinow I learned from. Unlike you, Mark, I came to poetry late,
>>-partly through a course in Modernism at university, where I found
>>Eliot & Pound & realized that this too was poetry. I should have
>>listed the Cantos, as I sat down & read it through (not
>>understanding much but) & certainly Pound's amazing sense of the
>>line, & his music taught me much. Later, Yeats, too, of course.
>>
>>If I started including prose my list would grow even longer than
>>the one I haven't tried (on the road) to construct....
>>
>>Doug
>>On 30-Jul-07, at 9:40 AM, Mark Weiss wrote:
>>
>>>Are there rules to this list?
>>Douglas Barbour
>>11655 - 72 Avenue NW
>>Edmonton AB T6G 0B9
>>(780 436 3320)
>>
>>Latest book: Continuations, with Sheila E, Murphy
>>(University of Alberta Press 2006)
>>
>>Is that the flesh made word
>>or is that the flesh-made word?
>>
>> Fred Wah
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