Beyond the Gates
Who influenced you the most in your poetry?
How did they inform your writing and creative thought process?
Susan Kinsolving: Growing up I had two posters in my room. One
was of Thomas Hardy, the great British novelist. I loved Hardy’s
poetry… it is remarkable.
The other poster was of a songwriter, Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan’s
lyrics also fascinated me, but the two couldn’t have been more
opposite. Emily Dickinson also inspired me from a very young
age. In particular though, it was always specific poems rather
than poets.
I read The New Yorker often and still do. I would peruse the mag-
azine and looked forward to reading it. I admired the journalism,
literacy, and quirky long articles that you couldn’t find in other
places. I am very devoted to that publication.
How can we learn to appreciate or even begin to understand the ambi-
guity in poetry?
Susan Kinsolving: It’s so interesting to me that we allow the
permission of ambiguity… to music, we just listen. When we go
to an art museum and look at sculptures or paintings, some of
which are very abstract, we don’t bother trying to understand
what it means. We just enjoy it.
So much of poetry is mistaught because the analysis is preced-
ing the enjoyment. Students begin to think that poetry is work
and that finding the meaning in it is a task. Part of the meaning
is always going to allude you because it’s trying to capture what
is illusive in our lives.
A good poem has some qualities of illusiveness, just by the
virtue of the language being elevated. I think it’s worthwhile
to study a poem, but I don’t think it’s necessary. I think that we
need to enjoy poetry.
What’s also so extraordinary about poetry unlike music or
painting is that everyone has some access to the language.
Everyone has some entry to the language. It’s probably one of
the most democratic and generous forms of the arts… yet it has
a bad reputation of being one of the ones you don’t understand.
The Keystone Magazine 103