I could do this forever. I was thinking about what my poetics are and why...and where they come from. I started thinking about what influenced me most as far as language and communication. One of the first things that astounded me about playing with words happened when I was 4 years old. My aunt and uncle (I was 4 in 1975 and my aunt and uncle were those 'real' hippies who drove a van with a big dolphin on the side and were always high) came to see us for Christmas. They didn't come until the day after, though, and I said something about the present only being a day late. My aunt said, "or it's really early for next year." Don't ask me why, perhaps my brain was at its most impressionable moment, but that stuck with me -- that way of looking at things from the other side. That's why I like playing with form and style and words and meaning.
The other major influence of my life was music. I was never into writing lyrics; for me it was more about listening to the song over and over again and writing down all the words. I did this pretty obsessively. To this day I can sing every word of every song on Billy Joel's "Glass Houses" album, which was my first 8-track. I was influenced by my parents' taste in music -- people like Crystal Gale, Glenn Campbell, Charlie Rich; I was influenced by my grandpa's music, too. He listened to even older stuff like "Mac the Knife" and I was heavily influenced by my aunts and uncles who were only a few years older than me and listened mainly to REO, Styx, Journey, and Eagles. Probably the biggest influence on my music is my husband. With an album collection of over 1,600 albums, 1,000 cassettes, and nearly 2,000 CDs I have been exposed to everything from Barry Manilow to KISS, from Neil Diamond to Marilyn Manson.
What does this have to do with poetry? For me, a lot. It's not the song, or the sound. It's the feeling and meaning I get from the words. Of course I love listening to songs like "Hey There Delilah" that have a lot of repetition and nothing new or meaningful in the way the words are used, but the songs that stick to me and shift paradigms for me typically contain something incredible.
I took some time to pull some of my favorite phrases and lines from some of my favorite songs. It's a little side journey I'm taking to figure out my own love affair with words, and it's only a small sampling of what has touched me.
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words pour like children to the playground
The other major influence of my life was music. I was never into writing lyrics; for me it was more about listening to the song over and over again and writing down all the words. I did this pretty obsessively. To this day I can sing every word of every song on Billy Joel's "Glass Houses" album, which was my first 8-track. I was influenced by my parents' taste in music -- people like Crystal Gale, Glenn Campbell, Charlie Rich; I was influenced by my grandpa's music, too. He listened to even older stuff like "Mac the Knife" and I was heavily influenced by my aunts and uncles who were only a few years older than me and listened mainly to REO, Styx, Journey, and Eagles. Probably the biggest influence on my music is my husband. With an album collection of over 1,600 albums, 1,000 cassettes, and nearly 2,000 CDs I have been exposed to everything from Barry Manilow to KISS, from Neil Diamond to Marilyn Manson.
What does this have to do with poetry? For me, a lot. It's not the song, or the sound. It's the feeling and meaning I get from the words. Of course I love listening to songs like "Hey There Delilah" that have a lot of repetition and nothing new or meaningful in the way the words are used, but the songs that stick to me and shift paradigms for me typically contain something incredible.
I took some time to pull some of my favorite phrases and lines from some of my favorite songs. It's a little side journey I'm taking to figure out my own love affair with words, and it's only a small sampling of what has touched me.
__________________________________________________________________
words pour like children to the playground
a cockroach leaving babies in my bed
now you're mrs. him
smiles a painted porcelain face
take possession of your stand
rage and hate and pain and fear of self
a purple umbrella and a 50-cent hat
making love to his tonic and gin
lime and limpid green
clouds of sunlight floating by
psychic emanations
love turns gray like the skin of a dying man
itchy feet and fading smiles
comfortably numb
warm thrill of confusion
light is changing to shadow and casting its shroud
America spells competition, join us in our blind ambition
Reflections in the waves spark my memory
keeping my eye to the keyhole
a prisoner in a king's disguise
12 o'clock news blues
cynical eyes
world in revolution spinning faster all the time
collision course with eternity
he hears the silence howling
Blue October
Blues Traveler
Led Zeppelin
Billy Joel
Pink Floyd
Styxsmiles a painted porcelain face
take possession of your stand
rage and hate and pain and fear of self
a purple umbrella and a 50-cent hat
making love to his tonic and gin
lime and limpid green
clouds of sunlight floating by
psychic emanations
love turns gray like the skin of a dying man
itchy feet and fading smiles
comfortably numb
warm thrill of confusion
light is changing to shadow and casting its shroud
America spells competition, join us in our blind ambition
Reflections in the waves spark my memory
keeping my eye to the keyhole
a prisoner in a king's disguise
12 o'clock news blues
cynical eyes
world in revolution spinning faster all the time
collision course with eternity
he hears the silence howling
Blue October
Blues Traveler
Led Zeppelin
Billy Joel
Pink Floyd
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