The world of poetry can be an insulated one in which writers feed off of each other’s creativity, emotion and spirit. We asked some of the best poets in America about the poets and poetry that have influenced and inspired their own writing.
“I’m asked a lot about influences, and I usually respond in different ways. Sometimes I will say Yeats, when I’m feeling nostalgic about my first deep encounters with poetry. Sometimes I will say middle-period Robert Lowell and all of Elizabeth Bishop after her first book, when I’m thinking technically. Sometimes I will say Ella Fitzgerald, because her ease combined with her purity and accuracy seem to me the model of all aesthetic virtue. Sometimes, when I’m willing to recognize that I live in a period of history, I will talk about the Ashbery of “The Double Dream of Spring” or Mark Strand. Preponderantly, though, I would probably say Whitman – not because I’m anything like him (who could be like Whitman?) but because of the frankness of the scope and the scale, because of his willingness to take it all on. He really is the true teacher in that way. Go for it, Whitman always says, which is something every poet should say to him or herself when he or she sits down to write. “Song of Myself” is still my favorite piece of literature.”
—Vijay Seshadri, 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner, 3 Sections
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