I am not a poet, not quite. Not yet.
My mind isn’t fully formed;
My ideas are imitations,
My love for punctuation
Stems from e.e cummings: my desire to read
“next to of course god America i” offbyHeart,
My heart is not mine, not quite. Not yet.
It belongs to Rudyard Kipling, If…
If I were older than maybe I’d
Be less influenced. But somehow my
Imitations are not limitations, or copycat
Admirations. A journey W. B Yeats
guides, T. S Elliot in my rear-view mirror.
It is not my downfall that I plaster
Sean O’Brien’s words on the inside of my skull.
My youth, not yours, not quite.
Like a baby learning first words
And if my poems from years ago smell
Like Wilfred Owen and feel like John Burnside
Then I am not ashamed. My mind is easily influenced,
From the poets to the songs and the movies,
It is not a folly to be young and love others
More than yourself. To find warmth in
The shadows of the noble, in anthologies
or the poetry section of Waterstones.
I know I am not a poet; I am fragments of others.
My words are not mine, not quite. Not yet.
Megan Depper