Finding My Voice
November 3
drinking a Coke.
on a paper napkin.
so I can wipe my glasses.
~ Richard Brautigan
I was raised on jump rope songs, nursery rhymes, and songs from the 40s that my father taught me. Those were my early influences and the foundation for my love of language. Poetry was the stuff we had to memorize in school that I hardly ever understood.
When I was a young adult, fresh out of high school, it was the lyrics of Bob Dylan and others like him that inspired me to write. During that time, I carried Yoko Ono’s book, “Grapefruit,” a conceptual book of verse and instruction, around with me like a Bible. I had a poet friend who introduced me to the poetry reading scene in Boston. I could never do that, I thought while watching the poets read their poetry. The same friend lent me books by Alan Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, and Sylvia Plath. But it all seemed over my head.
It was the poetry of Richard Brautigan, who I discovered on my own, that made me think for the first time… Wow, maybe I do like poetry. Later, I discovered Rumi, and so my self-identity as a person who loved poetry was cemented.
Although I wasn’t personally inspired by Ginsberg and the other Beat Poets, I suspect that Richard Brautigan was (some consider him a Beat). I’ve read that the poet who probably inspired the Beats the most was William Carlos Williams. I understand why. Williams, who was born in 1883 and died in 1963, avoided obscure symbolism in poetry, unlike other poets of his time. With his use of simple and direct language, sparse lines with a minimum of punctuation, his poetry validated my own and gave me an example to strive for.
This coming Sunday night my Writers’ Circle is presenting an evening of Spoken Word at Oddfella’s Cantina in celebration of William Carlos Williams birthday, the full moon and the last weekend of summer. It’s also my friend, Jayn’s birthday. I hope to read something for her.
September 14th, 2005 10:55 am
I’ve never met anyone else, besides Pat, Michele & Andrea, my best friends in high school, who enjoyed Brautigan, hell, no one I know has even HEARD of him, unless it was thru me.
Hmmm…maybe I need to expand my circle LOL!
I adored Richard Brautigan from the first book I read of his (which I discoverd on my own as well, along with The Hobbit), In Watermelon Sugar! To this day, one of his poems is the only one I can quote:
He’d sell a rat’s asshole
to a blind man
for a wedding ring.
Thanks for mentioning him today!
September 14th, 2005 11:21 am
For me it was William Stafford and Yeats. An odd pairing. Oh, and many, many lyrics, including Dylan, Beatles, but also Pink Floyd and Paul Simon.
September 14th, 2005 12:35 pm
Yes, Laura. Stafford and Yeats are almost as strange a pairing as Brautigan and Rumi. I also admire Stafford for his use of accessible language.
And Janet…yes, Brautigan is greatly under read!
Thanks for the comments.
September 14th, 2005 2:00 pm
have you read…
‘the light the dead see’
by Frank Stanford…
it is one of my favorites!
September 14th, 2005 5:46 pm
This is all I remember about Brautigan – but I lived in a haze at the time that I read him:
mayonnaise
September 14th, 2005 11:44 pm
Nope on Frank Sanford, Lu. But I’m checking it out and found this: The Minnow,” a poem from Stanford’s first book: “If I press / on its head, ’ the eyes / will come out / like stars.
And I found this on Brautigan and mayonnaise: he tells the reader in the penultimate chapter that he’s always wanted to “write a book that ended with the word Mayonnaise.” However, in the final chapter, he actually ends with the word “mayonaise.” HA
September 14th, 2005 11:47 pm
Colleen, I still have one of your old Alan Ginsberg’s books in my bookcase – I never really understood him either. I had a phase – beginning in high school and through my late 20’s, where I was in love with Elizabeth Barret Browning. Her writing is still beautiful to me.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
September 15th, 2005 8:00 am
I’m so completey out of the loop where poetry is concerned, however, my eyes perked up when I read about Bob Dylan in this post. I feel lost on poetry, almost as though it’s a language I’ll never learn. With all the wonder and awe I hold for words, I wonder how in the world that happened to me?
January 8th, 2014 10:46 pm
[…] 7. Read a 2005 blog post about how Yoko Ono was an influence in finding my voice HERE. […]