3 Poets Who Inspire Me To Write
It took me a long time to return to poetry as an adult reader. At school, we were forced to read, review, and write lengthy essays about a range of war poetry - poems that have their place but which won’t particularly inspire many 14-year-olds. At college, we were victim to the poetry texts our English Literature teacher preferred and selected for us to read. All of which made so little impression on me that I couldn’t name one for you now.
I’ve never felt inclined to write poetry, I’ve no doubt I would be terrible at it, and it’s perhaps this too that has been a part of my reluctance to read any over the past decade or so.
It’s only in the last year or two that I’ve tentatively begun to dip my toe back into the poetry pool, with delightful results. I started by further exploring Haiku, which led me to more contemporary poets, and then I was introduced to Mary Oliver. This became the real tipping point.
Below are three poets I find myself returning to time and again when I feel a little lost with my own writing, or just lost in general:
Mary Oliver
Things take the time they take. Don’t
Worry.
How many roads did St. Augustine follow
before he became St. Augustine?
—Don’t Worry by Mary Oliver
The first collection of Oliver’s that I read was Felicity and it simply melted my heart. This collection has a stronger focus on Oliver’s poems about love above her usual nature themes, but they’re a far cry from ‘Roses are red’ platitudes. Oliver manages to tap into that ‘something’ that is often so difficult to pin down about love. For me, they perfectly encapsulate that feeling of being in what I call ‘comfortable’ love - when you’re with someone and it just works. As a writer, who has attempted to capture this in my own writing, the simplicity and ease with which she captures this feeling always leaves me enamored.
Beyond this collection, Oliver is beloved for her nature writing and poems, the subtle ways she captures our world succinctly and delightfully.
Oliver inspires me because she helps me remember that perfection can be hidden in the ordinary, that so much can be said with so few words, that an elusive feeling can be captured and recreated in a sentence.
David Whyte
Whyte has summed up his poetry and personal philosophy as ‘the conversational nature of reality’ and if that in itself doesn’t inspire, his words certainly will. Within his poetry, Whyte focused on what he refers to answering the beautiful questions and exploring the overlaps of life.
Whyte’s words often feel like a call to self for me. They pull you up sharp and invite you to ask deeper questions, explore further nuances, and challenge perceptions that might in fact be holding you back. His work often inspires me for the gentle nudges to honor my own experiences and approaches to not only my writing but life in general.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
—Excerpt from Sweet Darkness by David Whyte
Sylvia Plath
On a completely different style of poetry to Oliver and Whyte is Plath. The Bell Jar rates highly as one of my all-time favorite reads, and I adore Plath’s narrative style. Despite this, I steered away from her poetry for years until I came across Lady Lazarus and was immediately hooked:
Ash, ash—
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
—Excerpt from Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath
I love Plath’s juicy metaphors and symbolism. I love how she hides her meaning and makes you work to find the story, her story, tucked away in the words. I find her poetry skilled and engaging, and it’s another reminder for just how much we can create words. For me, Plath creates connection, there’s something intensely identifiable in her work which I find raw and honest. Her poetry inspires me to pour a little more of myself into my work.
There are a few other poets whose work I’m still discovering and who are successfully changing my mind about the wonders of poetry - Sonia Sanchez, Maya Angelou, Emily Dickinson - to name a few, but the above three are ones I find myself rereading more often than not.
Although I’m still disinclined to write poetry myself, save the odd haiku, reading poetry has not only been emotionally engaging for me personally, it’s all helped me to feel better motivated and inspired to get stuck back into my own writing.
Reading different forms and formats of writing, particularly those outside of our own preferred genres, can help us in so many ways. Not least because they showcase the wonders that can be delivered with words, wonders we can take back to our own writing practice in new ways.
