Abstract
How does one distinguish between imitation and stealing? How does one determine who is an immature or mature, a bad or good poet or writer? At what threshold does someone’s work become so different from its original influence or inspiration that it is now unique? Harold Bloom seeks to answer these questions in The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry, the course’s critical theory companion text, where he argues “poetic influence is a variety of melancholy or an anxiety-principle” (p. 7) because it is inescapable. I disagree with Bloom’s assessment that influence is negative and thus anxiety-inducing. Instead, I argue that influence on writing is a neutral reality that, under the right circumstances, can become positive because of the way influence connects writers. My work aims to offer an alternative framework for analyzing the ways writers influence each other: one of lineage, examined through the lens of craft analysis, rather than critical analysis, rooted in my experiences with influence as both a student and writer of poetry. I analyze craft similarities between different poems to demonstrate the ways poets borrow from, build off, and honor each other from within our lineage, our shared space of poetry. I discuss the career stages of poets, focusing on their early to middle careers since that is the stage I currently occupy in my own career, and the practice of acknowledgement embedded in poetic customs which suggest that, widely, poets are not anxious about their influences, but rather are grateful for them.
Recommended Citation
Simms, Anastasia. "The Reality of Influence: Understanding Poetic Lineage." (Summer 2026).