Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark McDonnell
What Julie just said. I remember first reading Whitman and Keats when I was about 16 ('Song of Myself' and 'The Eve of St Agnes' specifically). Both blew my mind. They still do. I had little context and no idea they were exemplars of some great poetic divide. I just read the linked poem. It's unfunny and pointless.
(And, as has been pointed out, with its wheelbarrow and plums tellingly inaccurate!)
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The first two poets who made an impression on me were Keats and cummings, with Roethke following close behind. I also liked it all, though I must admit that my poetry-writing education was far too biased against formalism and I managed to major in English at Brown University without anyone once making even the slightest attempt to teach me what an iamb or a trochee was.