Momentary influence marks me a
suggestible poet.
My reading's my writing, and don't I
know it.
When I read Dickinson, I grow flippant
and short,
Write setups and punchlines, pun-sized
metaphors.
Reading Donne draws out my conceits and
my verse,
Makes it holy and sexual, ornamental,
perverse,
and alters my writing, sentence
structure, vocabulary.
I use words I've never heard out loud
and order them peculiarly.
When I read Kinsella or his football
cohorts
Metaphors bound in nature I translate
to sports.
But for moments of influence, I can't
beat my peeps,
Their words, our conversations –
fertile fields of ideas.
Those stranger-authors, prolific and
wise
Don't host or till my verse. They just
fertilize.
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