Influences & Inspirations

In terms of poets and writers who have influenced and inspired me, my poetic foremothers and forefathers, there is quite a long list. Here are just a few of many….

Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Patrick Kavanagh, Seamus Heaney, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, Billy Collins, Pablo Neruda, Rilke, Michael Ondaatje, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, W.B. Yeats, and James Joyce.  (I’m sort of a modernist at heart…but that’s really an animated conversation that should take place over a pint of Kilkenny.)

For writers of prose….again, a few key people to note:

Margaret Atwood (obviously, I’m a stalker!), Jane Austen (still looking for my Mr. Darcy), Charlotte Bronte, Pablo Coelho, Charles Dickens, Timothy Findley, Mark Haddon, Lawrence Hill,  Andre Alexis, Helen Humphreys, Alistair MacLeod,  Michael Ondaatje (but mostly his earlier stuff, especially In the Skin of a Lion), Mordecai Richler (St. Urbain’s Horseman & Barney’s Version especially), Miriam Toews, Richard Wagamese, Sheldon Currie, Emma Donoghue, Merilyn Simonds, Jane Urquhart, and Diane Schoemperlen.

For visual artists….there are so many, but my main loves are:  Emily Carr, Alex Colville, Mary Pratt, David Blackwood, Edward Hopper, James Abbott McNeill Whistler (the nocturnes in particular), Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keefe, Nicola Slattery, Tom Thomson, Lawren Harris, Daphne Odjig, Leland Bell, Christi Belcourt, Norval Morrisseau, Bill Reid.

For musical inspiration….

The Pogues, The Chieftains, Planxty, Flogging Molly, Billy Bragg, Coldplay, Elvis Costello, The Civil Wars, Amelia Curran, Glen Hansard (The Frames; The Swell Season), Blue Rodeo (Rose Coloured Glasses!), Great Big Sea, Van Morrison, Sarah Harmer, Diana Krall, Ella Fitzgerald, Joni Mitchell, The Decemberists, Sheila Carabine, Dala, The Housemartins/Beautiful South, The Indigo Girls, U2, The Tragically Hip, anything by Bach (but especially The Goldberg Variations). I’m a fan of singer/songwriters, mostly because I love words and how lyrics work inside my heart and mind.

I live and breathe traditional Irish music, and I love to sing it alone in my house or car…and sometimes at ceilis and/or book launches! 🙂