Poem Tryouts: Influences of Life
9:10 a.m. — San Antonio
listening to Abba sing Waterloo
Hello, everyone. Enjoying the Fall or Spring weather? Good. Keep doing so. South Texas isn’t there yet, although the mornings are cooler and stay that way longer, before we climb into the high 80s, low 90s. (she wept into her morning coffee, thinking of autumn in Atlanta…)
Although this isn’t one of my word prompts, I became curious, just now, as to the etymology of influence. Given what I was planning to write, I was fascinated by what I found. Originally Latin for inflow, it quickly became associated with the influence of the stars on human destiny, the flowing of their ethereal fluid, as it were. The sense of an indirect or imperceptible action that causes change, came later.
Okay, the idea. Think of, jot down, people, or things, that caused you to do something you might otherwise not have done. Or, to not do something you might have done. Is there one that caused a chain of events? My mother joined the CIA and moved to Hong Kong, to get away from the influence of her strong-willed mother. That put her out there shortly before my dad’s company sent him out on a tour. (sidebar — this always amuses me, especially as they both went to college in the same city, but met in HK).
Straightforward. I don’t think you’ll need my influence (snicker) as to a direction to take the poem, but you can write about the influence itself, or the results of the influence, or take a tangent from your thinking, should your brain lead you that way.
I look forward to reading the poems — last week’s were a lot of fun, by the way — and will see you Thursday for links (feel free to send me any you come across) and next Tuesday for another prompt.
Happy writing, all.
Tags: influence, poems, poetry, poetry prompts
Margo Roby: Wordgathering 
Misky
06/10/2015 at 5:27 pm
Love Abba (btw).
https://miskmask.wordpress.com/2015/10/06/changes-for-the-influential-margo/
margo roby
07/10/2015 at 9:39 am
All it takes is one note of an Abba song to get me moving.
Misky
07/10/2015 at 12:28 pm
I also require coffee toward that end.
purplepeninportland
06/10/2015 at 10:36 pm
Hi Margo! Mine is up at: https://purplepeninportland.wordpress.com/2015/10/07/for-love-of-poetry/
julespaige
07/10/2015 at 8:16 am
Siblings attempt to influence each other…
Wish it had a lighter note, but it is what it is.
https://juleslongerstrandsofgems.wordpress.com/2015/10/07/dispelled-dominion-shadorm-summation-for-two-prompts-10-6-s/
margo roby
07/10/2015 at 9:43 am
It’s funny that, Jules. Only four years ago, maybe three, I’m at mom’s for xmas and it’s the night brfore. My brother and I are wrapping presents and he stops me. ‘Please,’ he says ‘cut the paper away from you, not towards you’. I was so startled that he was clearly upset, that I still, anytime I am cutting anything, I think of him and am a little less careless about charp objects. Such a little thing and so late in life. And, still.
julespaige
07/10/2015 at 12:53 pm
That at least is not a self centered or selfish influence. I’m just not in the mood to be jumping through hoops for siblings that don’t give me courtesy or respect.
b_y
07/10/2015 at 8:38 am
Hola
https://fredherring.wordpress.com/2015/10/07/influence/
margo roby
07/10/2015 at 9:44 am
Hola to you, too.
Hannah Gosselin
07/10/2015 at 10:52 pm
https://wordrustling.wordpress.com/2015/10/07/keepers-of-the-wood/
Thank you, Margo!