The Anxiety of Influence

Question for my fellow creators (or anyone who's ever made anything. Yes that includes you):

How many times have you worked for hours, days, weeks, months, years , etc. only to finish a piece, nod with satisfaction, and then immediately melt in a fiery storm of nay-saying doubts? If you're anything like me, probably pretty often. Don't get me wrong, I'm generally quite proud of my work but anytime I'm about to share a piece with my peers I'm struck with a creeping fear. It's like Ongo Gablogian is strutting through the art gallery of my mind, shouting "bullshit- bullshit- derivative!" at every passing piece.

Ugh, that word: derivative. Art/literary critics love it. Nothing takes the wind out of an artist's sails like being accused of copying someone else. We're all victims of it; there's no escaping the influence of the writing we consume. If we let it inform our creative process does that make it wrong? Eh, I guess it depends.

People ask me all the time where I get my ideas for the subjects and forms of my daily poems. Sometimes I just spit out whatever comes to mind, but most of the time I'll take a poem, song, or quote I've recently obsessed over, put it in the ol mental mortar and pestle, then build a new work around it. Generally, this doesn't bother me, but occasionally I suffer from the dreaded Anxiety of Influence. What's that? Well, in 1973, literary critic Harold Bloom wrote a book called The Anxiety of Influence in which he outlined the struggle of poets burdened by the far-reaching influence of past writers. He claims that, despite the many personal aspects of a poet's work, they will, inevitably, copy or mimic the methods employed by older wordsmiths. This generates anxiety in writers, who believe that this weakens the posterity of their work. He goes on to describe how truly "strong" poets are able to produce viable work despite the influence of previous writers. I could go on and on about his "six revisionary ratios" but honestly Bloom gets exhausting after a while.

At the end of the day, I think its important to acknowledge the influence of others. That being said, it is equally important to remember that everything is a remix. There are very few original ideas out there anymore, but they can still be used in interesting ways. Hell, just look at James Joyce's Ulysses. Often cited as the greatest novel of all time, it's essentially an enigmatic retelling of Homer's Odyssey. Still, you can't just copy ideas completely; you can't tell the same story the same way and expect people to still love it. So where's the dividing line between acceptable influence and ripoff? How wide is that margin? I don't have an answer right now but maybe I'll come up with a more satisfying explanation someday.

Anyway, to close out I thought I'd give you an example of this in my own work. This unfinished poem was inspired by the song "For Sebastian from a friend" by Hop Along. While the stories are completely different you can see how I borrowed the rhythm and a few evocative images (particularly the crash).

Here's the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSRM0-eAarg

The first few lyrics:

He was in a mad dash when Sebastian crashed

And flew into a sea of concrete

His parent's came runnin

They'd have saved him

Had it not been for the intense speed

At which he was movin over everyone

Gates tearin skin all down the winding path

His blue bike there in the grass

Boy open your eyes up now see the rays hit the park in gold and green

This is for Sebastian from a friendGive a grin

I know you'll ride again

Study up on airplanes and the sea

Someday you'll be happier on air than you were on land

And you'll say

So strange, this way that I float oh oh

My Poem:

I was in first class when the cabin crashed

into the wounds

I had last year

It was mute mad, and my handshake had

a great volume

of fake perfume

Skinny, won’t you hold my hand?

I’ve got endorphins gushing from my glands

that spilled into

a plane worldview

(again this is just the first stanza, but I think you get the point)

So what do you think? I can't read this without also singing the opening melody of the song. Does it read on its own? Would you have been able to see the connection between these pieces had I not told you about it? Let me know what you all think.