phases of poetry.

[Leanne]

When I was younger, yes, what I wrote would be heavily influenced by what I was reading -- that's no bad thing, it's great to flex muscles that you haven't necessarily used before. It's also no bad thing to change your style from time to time, or to reinvent your writing. Everyone goes through different periods (a la Picasso). As I've gotten more comfortable with my own poetry, the phases tend to bleed into one another so that I can pick the style/form I want to use depending on what I want to write about and my mood at the time.