Jeffrey, as you glance back over your career would you say that there are any poets who have influenced you and your writing?

Jeffrey D. J. Kallenberg

I think a lot of poets have influenced me. I would have to say that at first Yeats influenced me the most. His poem "The Second Coming" was something that was to me certainly the essence of words, and I think his use of the English language as far as cooking it down to the essence was close to perfection and he certainly inspired me.

I think what Frost said, what Robert Frost saw, rather not so much said, and then he wrote, which was the same thing -- it was seeing "two paths in the wood." I mean, what could be simpler than two paths in the wood? We all see two paths, be they be two streets, two sidewalks, two entrances to an apartment house, and here he took the most common place of things and turned it into not only a profound question but a profound answer on how it affected his life. So I would say that those two poets -- Yeats because of his brevity and because of his use of language, and Frost because of his subject matter -- certainly influenced me the most.

More about this poet