At first I was scared, partly because my poetry teacher, to whom this book is written for, was a serious and strict man who could see the errors in my poems. Also, I realized the seriousness of my devotion. I gave up geography to study poetry, which a good many friends said offered no future. I ignored them because I liked working with words, using them to reconstruct the past, which has always been a source of poetry for me.

　　When I first studied poetry, I was single­minded. I woke to poetry and went to bed with poetry. I memorized poems, read English poets because I was told they would help shape my poems, and read classical Chinese poetry because I was told that it would add clarity to my work. But I was most taken by the Spanish and Latin American poets, particularly Pablo Neruda. My favorites of his were the odes—long,

　　short­lined poems celebrating common things like tomatoes, socks and scissors. I felt joyful when I read these odes, and when I began to write my own poems, I tried to remain faithful to the common things of my childhood—dogs, alleys (小巷), my baseball mitt (手套) and the fruit

　　of the valley, especially the orange. I wanted to give these things life, to write so well that my poems would express their beauty.

　　I also admired our own country's poetry. I saw that our poets often wrote about places where they grew up or places that impressed them deeply. James Wright wrote about Ohio and West Virginia, Philip Levine about Detroit, Gary Snyder about the Sierra Nevadas and about Japan, where for years he studied Zen Buddhism (禅宗佛教). I decided to write about the San Joaquin Valley, where my hometown, Fresno, is located.

【2017届浙江省高考英语一轮复习训练：选修六 Unit 1《Art》】相关文章：

★ 安徽省淮南市2014高考英语一轮单项选择及文章训练（6）及答案

★ 浙江省湖州市2014高考英语完形填空一轮（暑假）精炼（2）含答案

★ 湖南省岳阳市2014高考英语一轮单项选择训练题（10）及答案

★ 天津市武清区杨村第四中学2016届高考英语一轮复习语法专题三《其他特殊句型》课件外研版

★ 五大2015-2016高考英语第一轮复习的技巧

★ 2017高考四川省广安市英语阅读理解一轮系列训练：6（含解析）

★ 浙江省湖州市2014高考英语阅读理解一轮（暑假）精炼（13）含答案

★ （全国通用）2014届高考英语一轮单元复习 限时强化训练七

★ 2014届高考英语一轮复习课时作业(三)必修1Module 3《My First Ride on a Train》（外研版）

★ 重庆市2014高考英语阅读理解一轮（精品）训练题（2）附答案