Personal Canon

These are the things that influence how I think, work, and imagine. This list is far from exhaustive, but tries to identify some of my influences in my poetry, storytelling, and thought.

Poetic Words

📝

Four Quartets

T.S. Eliot

Language and pure meaning interwoven as only T.S. Eliot can - incomprehensible in its clarity, as poignant when you don't understand it as when you think you do.

🎵

There's so much more to life than we've been told / It's full of beauty that will unfold / And shine like you struck gold my wayward son / That deadweight burden weighs a ton / Go down into the river and let it run / And wash away all the things you've done / Forgiveness alright.

🎵

Blessings (ii)

Chance the Rapper

I speak of promised lands / Soil as soft as momma's hands / Running water, standing still / Endless fields of daffodils and chamomile ... I speak to God in public, I speak to God in public / He keep my rhymes in couplets

📝

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

Gerard Manley Hopkins

No one uses language as beautifully as Hopkins. His images well inside of you - beautiful but hard to reconcile with each other until they crystalize around some truth he's planted at the end of the poem.

Fantasy

📖

The Lord of the Rings

J.R.R. Tolkien

The first book to teach me that there can be more to great stories than fun plot. Prose that demands to be read aloud, a world that lives on beyond the page, and a vision of the good in the world that's worth fighting for.

📖

The Wheel of Time

Robert Jordan

This series is monolithic in many ways. One story slowly unveiled across 14 books, perhaps too slowly at times. Truly a masterclass in building a world and story together.

📖

The Dark is Rising

Susan Cooper

"When the dark comes rising, six shall turn it back, three from the circle, three from the track..." A world that unfurled legend and wonder as it was read aloud to me.

Science Fiction

📺

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Rick Berman & Michael Piller

A vibrant look at the frontier of space. Darker than other Star Trek series, but also full of life, complex heroes, and likable rogues. The first vision of the future that truly captured my imagination.

This page was inspired by this blog post by Brendan Schlagel. I borrowed heavily from his source code in creating this page.

If you re interested in the books I ve been reading recently, check out my Goodreads page