Ozzy Osbourne was my first poet. Specifically, the opening of "Suicide Solution":

Wine is fine but whiskey's quicker
Suicide is slow with liquor

seemed righteously adult, and well-put. That a father had sued him over the suicide of his son (not by liquor) confirmed its potency, and the importance and risk of honesty. I wanted to become an alocholic and a heavy metal singer.

In college, I discovered Rimbaud -- reading Enid Starkie's biography in Uris Library, before I'd read the poems themselves -- and raised my sights to absinthe and poetry. Now, I pop Excedrin and write a blog. I hope it suits me: nothing else has.