Tess Gallagher was born, raised, and currently resides in Port Angeles, Washington. Surrounded by the beautiful and wild Ozarks, she naturally gained a love for nature. Her house is situated on a hill, overlooking the surf. This atmosphere, and that of Ireland (where she spends part of the year), are sources for her inspiration. Gallagher spent seasons of her life in many places and was influenced by the culture and scenery she found there. You can find traces of her trips to Brazil, China, and Ireland in her poetry. In the video on the "Gallagher's Poetry" page you can hear Tess singing an Irish love song, like the one below. This music is clearly very influential to her.
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Gallagher also admits to being influenced by the feminist poets of the 60's and 70's such as Anne Sexton (left) and Sylvia Plath. The feminist movement in the United States occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. The goals of this movement were to achieve equal employment opportunities/pay for females and to increase the view of women to more than just homemakers. One major change brought about by this movement was the case of Roe v. Wade in which women were given the right to choose to abort their babies. The Equal Rights Amendment was also on the table for much of the 70s although it was declined in 1982.
The attitude of many female writers of the seventies represented in the following poem by Anne Sexton:
The attitude of many female writers of the seventies represented in the following poem by Anne Sexton:
![]() Gallagher also tells of the impact that metaphysical poets, especially John Donne, and writers like Louise Bogan had on her style.
"I'm not working off any current American writers. I think you would probably have to go to Anna Akhmatova, maybe, or to Louise Bogan to gauge where my lyric sense is coming from, and to Roethke, to John Donne, his metaphysical poetry. But he's a much more ordered mind than mine. His figures are worked out and honed in quite another way. Mine are much more serendipitous." -Tess Gallagher, interview with Artful Dodge STATUE AND BIRDS
By: Louise Bogan Here, in the withered arbor, like the arrested wind, Straight sides, carven knees, Stands the statue, with hands flung out in alarm Or remonstrances. Over the lintel sway the woven bracts of the vine In a pattern of angles. The quill of the fountain falters, woods rake on the sky Their brusque tangles. The birds walk by slowly, circling the marble girl, The golden quails, The pheasants, closed up in their arrowy wings, Dragging their sharp tails. The inquietudes of the sap and of the blood are spent. What is forsaken will rest. But her heel is lifted,—she would flee,—the whistle of the birds Fails on her breast. Art of the Metaphysical era and art of the 70's shared many common features such as surreal images, and bold use of color and line.
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GOOD FRIDAY, 1613. RIDING WESTWARD
By: John Donne Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this, The intelligence that moves, devotion is, And as the other Spheares, by being growne Subject to forraigne motion, lose their owne, And being by others hurried every day, Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey: Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit For their first mover, and are whirld by it. Hence is't, that I am carryed towards the West This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East. There I should see a Sunne, by rising set, And by that setting endlesse day beget; But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall, Sinne had eternally benighted all. Yet dare I'almost be glad, I do not see That spectacle of too much weight for mee. Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye; What a death were it then to see God dye? It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke, It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke. Could I behold those hands which span the Poles, And tune all spheares at once peirc'd with those holes? Could I behold that endlesse height which is Zenith to us, and our Antipodes, Humbled below us? or that blood which is The seat of all our Soules, if not of his, Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne By God, for his apparell, rag'd, and torne? If on these things I durst not looke, durst I Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye, Who was Gods partner here, and furnish'd thus Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom'd us? Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye, They'are present yet unto my memory, For that looks towards them; and thou look'st towards mee, O Saviour, as thou hang'st upon the tree; I turne my backe to thee, but to receive Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave. O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee, Burne off my rusts, and my deformity, Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace, That thou may'st know mee, and I'll turne my face. |