This blog post was initially an assignment for my poetry workshop class, and I’m excited to share it with my readers and audience. T.S. Eliot’s observation in his essay Philip Massinger—that “good poets make [what they take] into something better, or at least something different”—deeply resonates with my approach to poetry (Eliot, 1921). Rather than simply imitating my influences, I strive to absorb and transform them into works that reflect my unique perspective and experiences. In this essay, I delve into how the styles and themes of poets like Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, and T.S. Eliot have inspired and shaped my poetry collections. Through this exploration, I aim to show how learning from the masters can guide us in forging a poetic voice that is both deeply personal and true to our creative evolution.
T.S. Eliot’s observation in his essay Philip Massinger—that “good poets make [what they take] into something better, or at least something different”—captures the essence of my approach to poetry (Eliot, 1921). Rather than merely imitating my influences, I strive to absorb and transform them, creating works that resonate with my unique perspective. This essay explores how I have adapted the styles and themes of poets like Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, and Eliot himself, and how these influences have shaped my poetry collections.
Robert Frost’s use of nature as a vehicle for exploring human emotion profoundly influenced my poem “A Soldier’s Autumn”. Frost’s “Fire and Ice” condenses the complexities of human relationships into symbolic imagery, such as fire representing desire and ice symbolizing hatred. Inspired by his concise use of metaphor, I incorporated natural cycles into my poem to reflect the healing process after trauma.
Frost’s line, “Some say the world will end in fire, / Some say in ice,” served as a starting point for my exploration of renewal: “They say rebirth comes with spring’s embrace, / But I’ve walked through autumn’s brittle decay.” While Frost emphasizes apocalyptic extremes, I reframed the tension as a quieter, more personal journey, grounding the symbolic imagery in my own experiences. This approach aligns with Eliot’s assertion that mature poets transform borrowed ideas into something uniquely cohesive (Eliot, 1921).
This repetition ties the poem’s emotional arc together, underscoring themes of memory and impermanence. By borrowing Whitman’s structural approach, I was able to weave a cohesive narrative into the lyrical style, transforming his influence into a personal reflection on nostalgia and acceptance.
T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land has been instrumental in shaping my understanding of cohesion through fragmentation. In my poem “Fractured Reflections”, I emulated Eliot’s use of contrasting images to evoke both disconnection and continuity. His line, “These fragments I have shored against my ruins,” (Eliot, 1922) encapsulates the ability to construct meaning from disjointed pieces.
Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!” taught me the power of refrains in balancing emotion and structure. In this elegy, Whitman’s repeated phrase, “O Captain! My Captain!” reinforces a tone of reverence and grief, creating a sense of cohesion within the poem’s free-flowing structure. I drew on this technique in my poem “Whiskey and Autumn Winds,” where the repeated phrase, “The wind whispers goodbye,” mirrors Whitman’s refrains.
Similarly, in my poem, lines like “Broken glass and morning sun collide, / A shadow lingers where a home once stood” juxtapose light and destruction to reflect the fragmented nature of memory and healing. This approach aligns with Eliot’s philosophy of transforming influences into cohesive expressions of unique experiences.
forward into new creative territory, has allowed me to continually evolve as a poet.
In organizing my poetry collections, I have drawn inspiration from the thematic structuring of Maya Angelou’s Phenomenal Woman. Angelou’s poems build a cohesive narrative of empowerment, guiding readers through a progression of themes. Similarly, I structure my collections to reflect emotional journeys. In Shattered Glass, for example, the poems transition from chaos to catharsis, mirroring my personal transformation. In Whiskey and the Autumn Wind, the collection traces the tension between nostalgia and acceptance, inspired by Angelou’s ability to build emotional momentum within her works.
Eliot’s assertion that mature poets transform their influences into unique creations resonates deeply with my creative process. By adapting the styles and themes of Frost, Whitman, and Eliot, I have forged a poetic voice that honors my influences while remaining distinctly my own. The organization of my collections further reflects this transformation, allowing me to create works that are cohesive, personal, and resonant. As Eliot wrote, “the key is not imitation but integration—crafting poetry that becomes a whole of feeling which is unique” (Eliot, 1921).
In conclusion, the process of adapting influences from poets like Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, and Ernest Hemingway has been an essential part of my development as a poet. By borrowing elements from their works, I’ve been able to shape my own voice while respecting the traditions they established. However, it is through the careful welding of these influences into my poetry that I have created something uniquely my own. Much like Eliot’s concept of “stealing,” I have taken these elements and woven them into my own narrative, ensuring they resonate within the context of my life experiences. By combining traditional forms with Hemingway’s sparse, direct style, I have crafted a voice that speaks to both the emotional depth of my themes and the brevity of my expression. The resulting poetry reflects the interplay between these influences, but also diverges from them, forming a distinctive voice that is uniquely mine. This ongoing process of learning from the past, while pushing forward into new creative territory, has allowed me to continually evolve as a poet.References
Eliot, T. S. (1921). Philip Massinger. Retrieved from https://www.bartleby.com/200/sw11.html
Eliot, T. S. (1922). The Waste Land. Retrieved from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/the-waste-land
