Personal Narrative: A Person Who Has Influenced Me

Who has influenced me? This is a very difficult question because it is not something I have truly taken the time to think about. I have never stopped to think about where my influences have come from. I recently came back into writing so I will use writings and influences from when I used to write frequently in high school and shortly after. I have kept most of what I have written and going back to them has been a sad experience. Very little of what I wrote was happy, but I wrote from my heart. I never liked following the rules and I only wrote for myself. While I would be ecstatic to say that I write like Maya Anglelou, I do not. Anglelou was my first love in poetry. I had always been taught that poetry was supposed to be a certain way and had to have grand meaning behind them that took time to decipher. While I have no doubt that Anglelou wrote with deep meaning, her poems did not always stick to the traditional ways I was taught poetry should be. The first poem I remember become infatuated with by Angleou was Phenomenal Woman. I became so fascinated by her strength that screamed I am me and I don’t care what you think. Phenomenal women is the epitome of who Angleou is and who we can strive to be. Angelou includes pattern quite often in her poems. I think I captured her idea of using pattern without even realizing it. My …show more content…
While I never tried to emulate a specific person or genre, I had many influences, even if just a little bit. Now that I have come back to writing I think that all these influences are still valid, but there may be more I have not even thought of. I am able to see how each of the examples I provided of my own work are different and many of my pieces do not follow a specific theme or pattern. I over the years have started to develop my own style and now with these influences in mind I can continue to