Biographie
Entrevue
Yes I read poetry in high school, and that's where I truly fell in love with poetry. Poems by T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats were influential, as well as the Romantic poets Wordsworth. Colleridge, and Keats. The pivotal poem was George Herbert’s “The Collar.” The metaphor “rope of sands” was so evocative of spiritual struggle — it made me realize that an image and a metaphor could be powerful things to get a message across that were memorable and make me feel the feelings expressed in the poem more than the a simple prose passage could.
I started writing poetry in high school but really got into it in university. In 2001 I decided to take my writing seriously by reading as much as I could get my hands on and writing every day. I truly started thinking of myself as a poet when my first poem was published in the following year.
The poet’s job is to observe and try to use language to convey what he or she observes. Within the very good poems are universal truths and records of times and places. All poets contribute to this. Poetry can be political, environmental, or about anything really, but at the heart of a poem, no matter the cause or subject, is precise observation.
“Ulysses” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The rhythms are beautiful and the theme universal. I am moved by the last lines every time I hear them or I read them.
