This Bagley Wright Lecture is on being influenced (thinking of influence as a site of openness, and pleasure - not anxiety), with a focus on growing up in a family of poets and starting to write. The talk opens up into a wider range of influences from there, including a semester spent working one-on-one with Allen Ginsberg, and Berrigan's life-long conversations on poetry with his mother, Alice Notley.

This talk is one of several that the poet Anselm Berrigan is writing as part of the Bagley Wright Lecture Series on Poetry, a nonprofit that supports contemporary poets as they explore in-depth their own thinking on poetry and poetics, and give a series of lectures resulting from these investigations. Lectures are delivered publicly in partnership with institutions and organizations nationwide. Anselm Berrigan is the author of many books of poetry including most recently, Don't Forget to Love Me (Wave Books, 2024).