25 Author Meme

Dawn from Weldable Cookies tagged me so here goes:

The 25 Authors who have affected my writing:

They're probably mostly poets but here goes:

Generally speaking:
1 The Bible -- Hey, it's the book I'm always reading, plus it definitely affected my tendency to like natural supernaturalism. The despair, parallelism, and honesty of the Hebrew Poetry in the Psalms. The questioning of God in Psalms and Lamentations. The story of Jesus created within me a love for Christ figures.

2 Chinese Poetry -- The great anthology Sunflower Splendour is a must. The poems are clean. Some of them are very imagistic yet they never seem flowery. Others are very direct yet full of emotion.

3 Shakespeare -- The language, the characters. The relationship between Edmund and Edgar in King Lear, the friendly but tormented prince in Hamlet.

4 Eternity in their hearts by Don Richardson -- A book about how God has put the hook for the gospel in all folklore.

5 One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- totally gave me permission to write magical realism.

6. Ulysses by James Joyce and Finnegan's Wake -- totally wrecked my English by making me see language as a thing to play with.

7. The Picture of Dorian Gray -- Made me fall in love with books with dislikable heroes.

8. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and Native American Oratory -- (unsure of the title) I love oratory.

9. Grimm's Fairytales -- I love noble princes and fairytale princesses. Favorites are King Thrushbeard, Rapunzel.

10. Ghosts -- a short Story by Lord Dunsany. Not one of his fantasy stories but it made me fall in love with folks who battle for their sanity. In the story, a man who doesn't believe in ghosts is presented with ghosts and fights against believing in them. Great story.

11. Silent Snow, Secret Snow by Conrad Aiken -- made me fall in love with isolated, alienated, and slowly insane characters.

12. The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe. -- Made me fall in love with first person unreliable, insane, narrators.

13. The Lathe of Heaven, The Ones who walk away from Omelas, Texts by Ursula K LeGuin.

14. The Victorian Poets: Too many to count.

15: The Romantic Poets: Too many to count

16: The War Poets, especially Wilfred Owen.

17: The troubadours and Trovaritz: Like the Chinese poets, I read their works in unrhymed translation. This helped with making my poems more clean and direct.

18: Gerard Manley Hopkins: A wonderful poet who uses language wonderfully. I cannot begin to describe his agonies, his ecstasies, and his languages.

19: Good Times, Bad Times -- Forgot the author. The first book to break my heart and yet make me laugh. A totally funny book.

20: Dorothy Parker: Very witty.

21: Genji Monogatari by Lady Murasaki Shikibu. I could never make it through this book because honestly when she wrote this book -- arguable the first novel ever written-- plot hadn't been invented yet so it gets repetitive. But it made me fall in love with princes, with sociology, with depiction of different societies.

22: The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck

23: The Fierce People: an anthropological history of a very fierce tribe in the Amazon. From then on, I loved anthropology.

I've got to say that plays and films also affected me.

24: The Janus Film Series with their Japanese and European art flick collection.

25: Plays by Eugene O'Neill. My characters are nothing if not tortured.

I'll tag Chris at Stuff as Dreams are Made On a reviewer and a good person all around.

John Ottinger over at Grasping for the Wind a reviewer, lover of speculative fiction, and a Christian

Angelia over at Angelia's Ramblings an African-American writer.

Chris Howard over at his The0phrastus a fellow writer on the Juno Books list.

Rene over at Fruityfantastica a mom who is a Christian and who has an autistic child.

Amanda over at Priceless Pearls a lovely Christian site I visit everyday. Am not sure if she's an author but her blog is great.

and Erica over at Twisted Net a Christian, writer, and book reviewer.