Who's your muse poet and why?

When I'm struggling for inspiration I always go back to Plath, Eliot and Ahkmatova. Plath for her energy and imagery, Eliot for his rhythm and Ahkmatova for her ability to mix grand themes with commonplace observations.

Difficult question to answer. I read widely and different poets spark inspiration at different times. Yeats' mystery, Frost's seeming clarity with a whole world of deeper meaning beneath, E. Bishop & Wilbur to hear a well written clear voice. I often get inspiration by reading in the sciences, which I then tie in with deeper themes (I hope).

Not very predictable but it has to be Shakespeare's Sonnets.

The content along with the flow of the iambic pentameter helps assure me all is well in the world and put my universe back in kilter.

Hopkins, Housman, and Homer - because I love Higgins (in My Fair Lady.) Gads, sounds and meaning!

George Oppen - he has such razor sharp precision, economy, information density. "Prudery of frigidaire"!

http://www.fascicle.com/issue03/essays/killian1.htm

William Stafford for his clarity and simplicity; Rilke for his passion; Auden for his playfulness; Millay for her insight and evocativeness; Po Chu-i for his ability to distill the essence of beauty into so few words.

i find my muse has to be a lot closer at hand then a poet. sure, i read Neruda and Salinas and all the Spanish Poets, and the French, and yes, when I write, you might hear a semblance of Gary Snyder's love of the outdoors or the twist of Berryman's self convolutions,

but for a poem to crawl out of my pen and deliver itself up for editing and polish, i have to say, more often then not it's a whisper on the wind, the way a breeze might lift just the very edge of a strangers skirt as she flits by,

the eyes of a lover, when they slip off to closed, if only for a moment,

and i know rightthen that i am but a part of all she dreams.

nahhh. muses for me are blood and fire, warm to their bones.

I don't know if the following are muses are just poets that I love: Anna Ahkmatova, Shakespeare, Yeats, P. L. Dunbar, Edna St. Vincent Millay, but mostly my heart.

Alfred Lord Tennyson is my favourite muse. He seams to have written a poem for everything. If I was a Life Coach I would issue all my clients a copy of his poem 'The Idealist' after reading that I feel I can achieve anything.

If I am in love then it is Shakespeare, Brown and Burns if I am out of love then it is good old Dorothy Parker.

I do not rely on the blood and bones of passing lovers, their words are never constant.

H.D. for her defiance and mood.

Boland for her feminism and sense of place.

Sexton for her body imagery, and her sharp anger.

...really I try not to read other poets when I write. It's gotta come from the unconcious fully transformed and mediated through me, you know?

But these poets all make me feel much better.

Sappho, Euripides, Meleager, Rufinus, Callimachus, Bion, Basho, Issa, Baudelaire, Ezra Pound and T S Eliot plus Seamus Heaney.

I perfer Marlowe to Shakespeare in poetry and drama. I prefer Donne to Shakespeare. But I also love Shakespeare.

Always Auden. He's not the only poet I read, of course, but in times of crisis I always turn to him. His combination of witty discourse with a deep moral message brings back some stability to the world. If only everyone shared his moral vision...

I have no muse poet. I seek inspiration from my friends, my life, and the world as I see it. Then I work my arse off to make something beautiful. 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration

Muse Poet,

interesting question.
Rumi, Nye, Stafford, Yeats, and Goethe.

David

as for as musical poetry there is only one

Leonard Cohen

David

Anna Ahkmatova (my daughter is named for her) and Rexroth.

From a writing perspective (i.e. my own poetry), my muse is always my current lover. I read The White Goddess as a young woman and felt despondent about his assertion that women have to be the muse, not the writer. Then I read Sappho and ignored Graves.

I definitely write my best poetry when I'm in love. No doubt about it. Looking through my favourite anthologies again today, so does everyone else. All the best songs are love songs. Carol King is exceptional in her perception, but Amy Winehouse has some witty lines too.

From Sappho, Plato, Meleager, Callimachus, Ovid, Dante, Petrarch, Shakespeare, Donne, Keats, Wordsworth, Browning, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Pushkin, Hopkins, Rupert Brook, Auden, Yeats, Dylan Thomas, Plath, Heaney, Hughes and even John Cooper Clarke: think of any of them and your favourite poem will be one about love. There's no getting round it. (I should add I want to do an MA in erotic poetry, so I have a vested interest in 'pushing' this 'line'. ;D)

I'm a writer, but I can only write poetry when I'm in love or when my heart is breaking. So I never refer to myself a poet.

Leonard Cohen has said that he does not call himself a poet, that that is for someone other than the "poet" to decide. He said that he knows who he is up against, Dante, Homer, Virgil and the like.

This poem by Pablo Neruda does a great job of explaining the inspiration behing Poetry. Whether it is being in Love or just in some other state where we are aware that we are part of something larger then ourselves is when we come to find poetry. Poetry allows us to say things that really can not be said any other way.



And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.

Pablo Neruda

Miles Davis, the guy made poetry out of music. In fact his whole style was about phrasing the horn like a vocal.
Otherwise William Burroughs. His odd little "routines" are perfect poetics. Vivid images that haunt me for awhile.

Miles said he was the vocalist in his band. He listened to vocalist who had that clear and wonderful pitch and phrasing and applied it to his horn.

I think Stevie Wonder is a fine poet having been a lifelong fan of his music.

Wallace Stevens for his clarity of vision.

William Carlos Williams for his purity.

Walt Whitman for his lush sensory detail.

George Herbert for his thoughtfulness and subtlety.

Interesting mix of poets. I don't think I've ever met someone outside of the lit department who's even heard of Herbert--he rocks, to put it flippantly.

Much as I appreciate George Herbert, I've never met someone inside or outside of the lit department who said he rocks! Perhaps the speaker of "The Collar" is a bit of a Rebel Without a Cause (until the last line).

My first was Poe, and I still have a soft spot for him. Ever since high school, though, it's been Eliot, especially Prufrock.

J. V. Cunningham
for succinctness.
Thomas McGrath
for purpose.

@ 26: Well...I read him for my Brit canon class, and I remember surprising myself by being very impressed with him, because 17th century metaphysical poets can be kinda priggish sometimes. You've gotta hand it to him- poems like 'The Prayer'? Inventing shape poetry? He's kinda the man.

Sylvan_eyre--Herbert really is a lot of fun, though I think of his "shape poems" as a bit on the priggish side. I prefer his impassioned lyrics such as "The Collar," "The Flower," "The Harbingers," and the "Love" and "Affliction" series.

Have you read any Vaughan? He's a follower of Herbert who's also quite good.

DoctorRobert-- I liked 'the Prayer' and the 'Love' series as well. I have not read Vaughan-- I admit I have some impatience with a lot of the 17th century...I stuck to the giants like Donne and Milton, and so I have patience for them as well as Herbert and Wroth but not much else.

The impassioned confusion is what stays, I think.

Vaughan is more impassioned than confused, I must say.

I like the latter more than the former, sometimes.

Yes! Love Plath more than one of my poems was inspired by her style! Love "Daddy" & "The Applicant".

Also, very inspired by D. H. Lawrence's "The Ship of Death".

Ahhhhhhhhh "The House was Quiet and the World Was Calm". Ummmmm......

Who said "She rides her hips like a horse"?

I am museless.

Very funny! I think pain is my muse.

My muse does her best work when I've been completely crushed. When things are going good she must take off for the beach.

Lately, I've taken a fancy to the English poet John Clare. I love the nature imagery. Garrison Keeler drew my attention to him by reading a few of his poems on Writer's Almanac. I'm eagerly awaiting a back ordered collection of Clare's called I am: The Selected Poetry of John Clare from the Scholastic Bookshelf.

My muse or muses rather are the great John Keats (I love "Fill for me a brimming bowl" and "To Sleep"), Edna St. Vincent Millay, Pablo Neruda (I'm thinking of using his Sonnet XVII on my wedding invitations), Billy Collins (for his simplicity and beauty), Elizabeth Bishop, and Gordon Parks (for his variable talent!!)

I haven't written anything in a while though...probably cuz I always find myself comparing my work to theirs. :\

I have quite an extensive muse list, but in the past few weeks Keats has been my muse in residence. I think they all take turns, depending on the mood of the moment. Keats helps me get off the bitter train for a while, which is refreshing.

re: 36
William Carlos Williams (kinda)

38: maybe Payne? or dropping 10, no pain, no gain? right, write

39: crushes maybe, but Clare clearly better

for #42 Yes it was William Carlos Williams!

1. D. H. Lawrence, especially "Ship of Death" and "Snake." I like the life, death, life references. Lawrence lived so close to death and the idea of death: I feel he wanted desperately to connect with some possiblity of immortality. I'm deeply moved by these two poems.

2. Theodore Roethke, especially "The Waking," "In a Dark Time," "Meditation at Oyster River," and "Journey to the Interior." I like the tension in his poems between unity and disunity, sanity and madness, life and death.

3. Rilke for the hugely spiritual influence he has on me.
-------------------------------------------------------

Yes, poets (writers) are often muses for me. They do become real for me, if unattainable (generally because they are dead). They are as real to me as any lover.

mother courage and her children

sometimes galileo

Too many to list. Mark Twain often comes to mind.

Sparrows are transporting.

Depends perhaps whether I want jangle, or lyrical; rough, or daffodil nodding in agreement with the breeze.

Cave Canem
owed to George Barker

I chase it
Like a lunar wolf
Pursues a helpless bitch
Through the closed-eyed
Paraffin night

Puppies bringing
All that energy, sans
Experience, in the quiet
Of a study , wagging
Adjectives, howling
Verbs

Bold or quiet,
Everyone looking for
A happy compromise.

Witty wags, becoming?
Barking their chins
On odd angled phrases

The truly erudite seem,
Disappointingly, to talk
More than they write;
The transience is depressingly
Real.

And my held-hero,
Barker, at least reaching
Redundantly for god,
Meaning to mean,
Clinging to dignity
Like a broken umbrella
In a strong wind.

Old egos either
Try to oppress or
Retreat into that egg
Hard shell where
They growl and
Lie.

Chewing it all up,
Playing charades with death

And experience
Sounds like –
But it’s only a guess,
Hope, whistling
In the dark.

Siding with 24 on Wallace Stevens, for exactly the same reason.

I also find myself intentionally going to Eliot and Bly to get worked up over how much I dislike their outlooks on life. Afterwards I have to grab a pen to find relief. (Not recommended just before bedtime.)

#48 --

It's easier to list poets who aren't "muses" for me.

You list two -- Eliot and Bly. (The former was a phony -- but it was easy for him to get published: he was an editor at the publishing house that published him). Bly is a pseudo-"New Age" embarrassment. Bloatedly full of himself.

Don't find much in Michael McClure except the sense that he writes to "get laid".

Others are Ezra Pound (somehow the spiritual sickness -- a sense of dread -- comes through) and Edgar Allan Poe (I was that dark and cynical as a kid; never again).

#9 --

Duplicity

Women play at being mystery --
Ever avoid being known --
Yet complain of men's inconstancy.

#20 --

I tend to agree with Cohen. It's only in recent years that I've dared call myself that -- isn't that what verse-writers are?

But that's because it's easier than answering the question, "What do you do?" with, "I'm a writer," to which the question is, "What do you write?"

Others need their shorthand tags, their categories.

But I remain uneasy with it, even as obviation of that last bogging-down, circularity question, the answering of that being a sense of unease, even of having mislead.

50> Definitely agree on your assessment of Bly, but I was trying to say more about them than that these fellows are simply not among my personal muses. For me, they're a sort of anti-muse; they make want to work harder to counteract everything I find dislike in their poetry. In the end, I end up reading them nearly as often as poets I admire and getting worked up to the point of needing to release my thoughts.

#53 --

As a believer in the "Holy Word" I tend to believe writing should be about the writing, not instead a covert deceit as exploited vehicle, as means to an ulterior end.

Do I think his being able to transform himself in an even more dishonest "lady's man" is amazing? No: it is unethical and immoral to lie for sex. Some even consider it rape.

Many of us who love classical vocal music have encountered Herbert through the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, who provided a brilliant setting for the 'Five Mystical Songs.'

busy reading Geoffrey Hill - wonderful stuff, but impenetrable - it sings (OK, maybe it chants) to me, but I can't fathom it. It's like Hopkins on drugs

. . .

is that too much?

insights (or incites) welcome to either of us

help! ;)

Lovecraft; a core of being in the trival

While certain poets have influenced me-especially the ones my father used to read to me as a child- the ones that have most directly inspired me are the poet-songwriters of popular music.

When I was younger I used to write poems while listening to CDs or the radio and, consciously or unconsciously, my poems would borrow the rhythm or beat of the music. My mood- the mood of the poems- the mood of the music. The 'lyrics' of my poems were wholly my own, but if the poems of my youth could be sung the tune would probably sound like an 80s or 90s pop song!

T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Rilke. These are the 3 that I carry in my briefcase all the time.

Poets I grew up with: e.e., John Masefield and Robert Frost

Poets I admire/ am inspired by now: Coleridge, Keats, Tennyson, Yeats, Frost (still), Li Bai, Maya Angelou, the Dylans (Thomas and Bob) and certain modern songwriters.

One of my favorite poets is Mary Oliver. I can't imitate her, but I don't think I want to try.

I have also found Gerald Stern's style interesting.

#62
Mary Oliver is inimitable. She has a classical mind. Wish I had known her earlier. My students would have loved her simplicity of expressions -- and brevity! Sheʻs makes fine distinctions and writes them out effortlessly, it seems. I think her Voice is very much in Tune with her Thinking. Why is she not heralded more? The market is cluttered with names and claims, herʻs gets lost. To our loss. I am wondering how to CELEBRATE her writing -- and her.

>63 leialoha: What Mary Oliver writes does seem effortless. Her best to me seemed effortless to read as well, but left me feeling "better" in some way than I did before reading it, like a work of art should. The book I am thinking of when writing this is A Thousand Mornings.

I thought Sharon Old's Stag's Leap was good as well. I'd like to read that again. It seems more prosaic than Oliver, but I'm glad she put the collection together.

I think I tend to have muse poems more than muse poets, but there are a couple whose voices I seem to easily open to:

William Blake
Yeats
Milton
Wallace Stevens
Walt Whitman
Wilfred Owens
Sylvia Plath
H.D.
Adrienne Rich

I also am unable to resist the Iliad in any translation....I read it over and over, and I must have like six different versions of it at this point.

I tend to like the defiant ones...the ones who live in "the world elsewhere" and won't relinquish their hold on it.

Mary Oliver I like, but I don't love. I am drawn to her sense of living in the present and her wide-armed openness to the natural world. That wonder she feels is very familiar. But her use of language sometimes feels ordinary, lacks the shimmery quality of the truly sublime. I rarely read a poem of hers and am left thinking "but how did she do that?"

Of the classic poets that I've read and I have only read a small selection, I remember enjoying Chaucer the best. The Wife of Bath's tale is particularly nice, at least to me.

A few of Gerard Manley Hopkin's poems come to mind such as the one that starts "Margaret are you grieving", but I don't think I've ever read more than a few.

Does anyone have a particular poem they thought exceptional?

Just wanted to mention Hailey Leithauser's poem "Zen Heaven" in swoop. There is a rhythmic sound to the poem and hint of meaning that drives home through three uses of the word "tomb" in the last line.

It is one of my favorites.

#65
A wonderful, wonderful list-Full! and thatʻs just a beginning! In this Month in which we celebrate Poetry, Iʻd like to say that there are prose works that are virtually poetry without the verse forms. One of my favourite is Maloryʻs La Morte DʻArthur.
On the other hand, there are also poems that read like prose. Consequently, it is BEST to forget names and even definitions (unless they are needed, of course!). As Hamlet said "The PLAYʻs the
THING!" (i.e., IF he SAID it like that! YOU CHOOSE.)

I have been reading translations of Chinese poetry. My favourite is the 12thc. LI CHIʻANG CHAO. She is Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Sylvia Plath on top of Sappho. (Sounds like a Wedding cake?) Look her up on the Internet. She is VERY MODERN (youʻll be surprised), which means LOVE never goes out of fashion and is as close to the human condition and human frailty as it ever was such as in Li-Chiʻang Chaoʻs lyric poems -- and as AGAINST THE TERRIBLE CHANGES of her LIFE.

She is in an unprovocative way the Opposite of Emily Dickinson. Dickinson is fine in a cool, frozen-in-the-mind/body male top of the thinking/ seldom below the neck kind of poet. Her kind of poems are the product of a cold climate; there is fire under the ice; the fire is genuine, but it doesnʻt stir one to dance and fly . . .but to sit down, yes, you can sit on the green grass, but be careful not to get your dress soiled? there is the sky to see and itʻs not as though you must see it with your eyes, for it only needs your mind to imagine . . .for it to be in fact actual, real Space/Time phenomena. Poetry can do that, yes, and well, yes.

Comparisons are invidious somebody said; and they are if thereʻs nothing to be thought and rethought about.
With pleasure there ought to be instruction that isnʻt instruction but a pointing out kind of experience, like of a star. ELIZABETH BARRETTE BROWNING was also confined; but she was never merely within the tracings of her self-isolating mind. SYLVIA PLATH was known to be mentally "unstable" (not the right word) but she was more stable than most people who wrote poetry and were the stablest mentally of any time.

And then of course there are the poets who wrote DRAMA.
Archibald Mc Leishʻs JOB is unforgettable. It is such fine SPOKEN DRAMA, it is all poetry to me. Which means Poetry in the old traditions were COMMUNAL, but when HEARD were PERSONAL as well. When SPOKEN poetry turned into mainly WRITTEN POETRY because it was taken out of the public hearing and allowed to live indoors, behind closed doors, in the privacy of bedrooms that were self-imposed prisons, or living rooms that were as good as the entire earth itself, or the entire 12th c. village in a Province empty for years of oneʻs beloved Magistrate husband sent away by the government to act as an officer of Justice and bring peace upon the country (never mind the family left at home for decade, after decade --Li Chiʻang Chao died in her 8oʻs (she never knew when her husband died, if he was dead, and where). . . extremely poor even though once Family-Rich and Famous as well . . . .

Poetry helps us celebrate life itself, rich or poor, in mind uniquely or full bodiedly sensuouos . . . .

MANA to POETS! to POETRY!