More and more, I find myself moving away from the more conventional lyricism and narrative of my earlier poems, and toward something more elliptical, less linear, more fragmented. As for aesthetic principles, I recently determined that I like to take a little bit from the imagists, a bit from the confessionalists, some surrealistic tricks, some ellipticism, and shake with some chick music angst. Add a splash of lime.
I write because it's something I'm reasonably good at (unlike cooking or math.) I write because words have a power, a resonance that goes beyond mere conveyance of meaning...a shimmer, a hum...how one word rubs against another and produces friction.
Different poems find their inspiration in very different places--the work of other poets, artists, musicians landscape, weather... I think the work springs from any number of things, sometimes just an overheard word. Sound and rhythm, as well, play an important role in crafting a poem, and are integral not only to my own work, but my experience of that of others. I'm also interested in the notion of ecriture feminine, how to write not only of the body, but from the body.
As for influences, I'd definitely say Plath and Sexton chiefly. The Surrealists. TS Eliot and Yeats. Mina Loy, Millay, Dorothy Parker. Also, the Brontes, both poetry and novels, Henry James, EM Forster. Faulkner. Contemporary poets like Daphne
Gottlieb, Olena Kalytiak Davis, CD Wright, Arielle Greenberg, Simone Muench, Lyn Hejinian, Mary Ann Samyn, Sarah Manguso, Larissa Spzorluk. Non-literary: Joseph Cornell, indie and horror films, surrealist collage. Grunge-rock and chick music of vague 1990's origins.