Poet's in the Kitchen

I grew up in a small town on the northeast shore of Massachusetts in one of the oldest town in the country. I was surrounded by people with sharp Boston accents who had their own sayings and phrases distinct to that area like in Paule Marshall’s “Poets in the Kitchen.” A word that was used often was “wicked” which mean very, so something might be “wicked funny” or it could be “wicked cold outside.”
My father grew up in Medford, a town just outside of Boston, and my mother grew up in a small town in western Massachusetts near Springfield and lived in a more rural area. It was always interesting to hear the vast differences in speech and manner between the two families. My father’s family is loud, temperamental and all have very thick Boston accents. My mother’s side of the family is more subdued, quieter and has little to no trace of an accent despite being only two hours away from Boston. As a child I always loved to listen to the long and hilarious stories my father’s side of the family had to tell; my father in particular was prone to tall tales in which he would add extra falsities for added entertainment. When I was younger, I found myself doing the same thing while telling stories to my friends in order to get a laugh from them like my dad would.
It wasn’t until I moved to South Florida that I realized what a distinct and interesting place New England was. The houses all looked the same in Florida and the neighbors kept to themselves despite my father’s best efforts. To escape my homesickness and lonely early teen existence, I spent my time reading a wide variety of books like Paule Marshall describes doing. She describes how she “sheltered [herself] from the storm of adolescence in the Macon Street Library” (632).
There have been a number of writers and texts that have influenced my thinking and writing. One of which Marshall herself describes having a preference for; the “…long, full blown, richly detailed 18th and 19th century picaresque tales…” (632). I was particularly influenced by Charles Dickens and 19th century Russian literature like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov. I had always thought of myself as a quick reader but reading large, complicate literature like this forced me to slow down and aim not for finishing the book, but for overall comprehension. The more I read, the more I felt the need to write my thoughts down. Being able to comprehend this kind of literature and knowing that I could understand it if I allotted my self enough time made me less intimated by complicated literature or non-fiction.
Another sphere of writing which has been influential in my manner of speaking and writing are court opinions, legal blogs and legal history. Coming of age at the time I did, there have been many basic civil liberty and constitutional rights issues that I found myself being concerned about, but not really knowing why I should be. I stated reading legal blogs like Glenn Greenwald’s “Unclaimed Territory” on Salon.com where he would post links to various court opinions. I bought a legal dictionary and would spend a couple days or weeks deciphering these opinions with excessive note taking which I had become familiar with while reading literature. Considering that I read court opinions as a hobby, I’ve settled on attending law school. I’ve also learned that there is a developing field in law which connects my major, literature, with the law.

Work Cited

Marshall, Paule. Poets in the Kitchen. Callaloo, John Hopkins University Press, Spring 2001.