INTJ's Favorite Writers/Poets (and why)

**JDFP** · 03-24-2011, 01:10 PM

Charles Bukowski has always been one of my most favorite poets. I never knew the man personally but from everything I've read/researched regarding him he certainly seemed to be an INTJ personality. As far as that having an impact on his writing, I think it can certainly have an impact on one personality type relating to another personality type when it comes to literature (i.e. when I read Bukowski I often find myself yelling: "YES! I UNDERSTAND! I CAN RELATE!" to the top of my lungs while other people may just scratch their head saying "huh?").


	Charles Bukowski - "Oh Yes" there are worse things than being alone but it often takes decades to realize this and most often when you do it's too late and there's nothing worse than too late.

I 'get' Bukowski on a fundamental level. When I read him (and I have a great number of his works) it is as if he's picking my brain and introducing me to something I've always known on an inherent level but never really given much thought to before. There are times I feel as if I'm sitting on a bar-stool beside the drunk lost in my own world with no one else but the two of us existing in the moment.

Anyway... I'd probably consider Vonnegut and Harlan Ellison to both also be INTJ writers as well from my understanding of them and I also have a high appreciation for both of these writers as well.

Do you think you have a greater disposition for appreciating an INTJ writer more for being able to relate to said author on a similar personality level? Or is it all just a matter of how well the author molds his/her characters?

Who would you consider your favorite poets/writers? Why?

**M1440r** · 03-24-2011, 07:39 PM

Writers:

Probably either J.K. Rowling or Thomas Pynchon. Rowling is a sentimental favorite purely because her books really introduced me to the world of literature, and have always provided solace from the real world when I need it. Pynchon...well, I enjoy reading his books because he writes in such a loose yet calculated fashion. Every word has a purpose, and when you finish one of his books you seriously need to look up and ask yourself, "What the fuck did I just read?" Furthermore, I enjoy the mystery and aura that surrounds him.

**xRedSunflowerx** · 03-25-2011, 02:52 PM

My favorite writers and reasons why:

Bill Bryson - intelligent humor that literally (no pun intended!) makes me lol.
John Grisham - characters utilize analytical skills, strategic planning, and specialized knowledge (traits associated with INTJs) to commit "perfect crimes" or resolve complex legal matters.
Edgar Allen Poe - superb Gothic, macabre imagery.
Shakespeare - witty, bawdy humor and double entendre; extensive contributions to the English language.

I also read Dan Brown, Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, J.K. Rowling, and Kurt Vonnegut.

**XFire35** · 03-25-2011, 03:25 PM

My favourite poem is "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop.

**katethegreat** · 03-25-2011, 07:39 PM

Another vote for JK Rowling here. Jane Austen is delightfully snarky and writes the most elegant sentences. Kazuo Isiguro is another favorite.

**Luciferus** · 03-26-2011, 02:47 PM

I love Nietzsche, if he can be counted as a writer, for his philosophy is simply empowering and brings me enormous pleasure to read.

I haven't read too much of poetry, but I liked Goethe's Faust a lot as well as "If" from Kipling.

**Rachminov** · 03-26-2011, 07:29 PM

WB Yeats

I heard a reading of When You Are Old when I was a kid and then marched up to the library to find his complete works. A few hours later, I had finished reading through his poems and plays and just... je ne sais pas, I adore the way he writes.

**Kanizsa** · 03-28-2011, 02:39 AM

musician terre thaemlitz

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Just read that article, he seems like he could be an INTJ.

**BellaBianca** · 03-28-2011, 03:25 AM

TS Eliot, I don't try to type him.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 25
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate; 30
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go 35
Talking of Michelangelo.

I have sometimes been at this place, too.

**Antares** · 03-28-2011, 03:42 AM

I've had many, but I don't tend to remember them. So most recently, Jean-Paul Sartre and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

**HAL 9000** · 03-28-2011, 01:28 PM

Solzhenitsyn, Dostoyevsky, CS Lewis, GK Chesterton, Shakespeare, and Victor Hugo (with reservations).

**Reddkatz** · 03-28-2011, 03:11 PM

Favorite writers are Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas (after skipping the fillers) and Shakespeare. Favorite poet is Pablo Neruda.

**Humanzee** · 04-15-2011, 07:53 AM

Jorge Luis Borges, for obvious reasons.

**Merle** · 04-15-2011, 03:49 PM

	Originally Posted by Humanzee To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Jorge Luis Borges, for obvious reasons.

Indeed.

My favourite novelists are J.G. Ballard, Henry James, Doris Lessing, Elfriede Jelinek, Nathalie Sarraute, Samuel R. Delany, Anna Kavan, J.W. von Goethe, Paul Bowles and Ursula K. Le Guin.

Short story writers: Ballard, again; Borges; Sam Shepard; Angela Carter.

Poets: Paul Celan, George Herbert, J.H. Prynne, Henry Vaughan, Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens.

I think Ballard is my favourite of all writers; he and I have the same dreams, obsessions and nightmares. In his fiction he magnifies the exact details of a scene that would draw me in in real life and then blows the image apart with beautiful strangeness. He's just amazing, my best friend lent me a copy of his novella Running Wild when I was 13 and since then he's been a constant presence in my life - I really couldn't imagine my life without his writing.

**Humanzee** · 04-17-2011, 12:58 AM

@Merle
It is frightening reading these things, because I relate exactly to what you are saying, yet feel like you are completely foreign because I haven't yet read or heard of a lot of the authors. It's a unique insight into what it must be like for someone I don't know to meet me for the first time. Thanks!

How about this:

Ego: Cervantes, Toole, Borges
Id: Burroughs, Dostoyevsky, Kafka
Superego: Asimov, Steinbeck, James

I don't know where to put Flaubert.

psykhe · 04-17-2011, 01:39 AM

I like books/stories that are socio-politically themed.

Writer/Author: Jane Austen, Sidney Sheldon (don't laugh), Paulo Coelho, John Steinbeck, J.D. Salinger, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Poets : Rabindranath Tagore, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Frost

**timeineternity** · 04-19-2011, 09:41 AM

Fyodor Dostoevsky, William Wordsworth, Percy Shelley, Allen Ginsberg, T.S. Eliot.

I like all of these because I:

immensely admire their technical skill / strongly relate to their experiences and thoughts / admire their creativity / admire their sincerity/honesty.

---------- Post added 04-19-2011 at 12:42 PM ----------

I'll have to check out Charles Bukowski.

**therrirl** · 04-19-2011, 09:52 AM

E.E. Cummings . . . "She being brand new." You have to read this if you never have . . . the words are nothing if it is not pronounced with the correct inflections, then it is hilarious and sexy. it's a poem about a car, maybe? LOL

Authors: Wiese/Hickman, Preston/Childs, Watt-Evans . . . many more.

**timeineternity** · 04-21-2011, 02:30 PM

That's interesting that you like e.e. cummings. I strongly disliked what I've read of his work. What is it that you like about it?

---------- Post added 04-21-2011 at 05:31 PM ----------

How do all these INTJs like Jane Austen?

**Karneval** · 04-22-2011, 04:49 AM

My favorite writers:

Sir Arthur C. Doyle (I love the Sherlock Holmes stories)

Georg Orwell & Ray Bradbury & H.G. Wells (I love their style of writing
and dystopian literature)

Jane Austen (I like her style of writing and strongly relate to some
of the characters)

Michael Ondaatje (I admire his technical skills)

Oscar Wilde (I like the humor in his books)

Alexandre Dumas (The Tree Musketeers and The Count of Monte Christo are just great books)

**DS Lovecraft** · 04-22-2011, 05:19 AM

H.P Lovecraft - So much imagination in his stories and no one writes like he did. It's a shame horror has become slasher entertainment instead of true horror like Lovecraft wrote.

**Madden** · 03-07-2013, 07:47 PM

George Orwell, Bill Bryson, T.S. Eliot...

Mikhail Bulgakov, Saki, William S. Burroughs...

Allen Ginsberg, Christopher Hitchens, Irvine Welsh...

Alexander Trocchi, Alasdair Gray, Kathleen Jamie...

Robert Cormier.....

Hmmm....I have way too many favourite writers and poets.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edit: I forgot to add reasons for liking the writers that I do. All of them, in their own way, rebel against the status quo.

**vulpesvulpes** · 03-08-2013, 07:12 AM

Oh man, you should never ask a librarian this question...

Favorite authors:

Mark Z. Danielewski- He is such an innovative, interesting author and reading House of Leaves forever changed the way I view literature.
Vladimir Nabokov- It wasn't Lolita that hooked me, but Invitation to a Beheading. I was enthralled with this book and read it twice in two days.
J.R.R. Tolkien- ...because he builds worlds!
Brian Jacques- As a kid, I read every book this man published. His Redwall series was so imaginative and detailed. I still love them.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn- His writing is so raw and powerful.
Jean-Paul Sartre- I admittedly have a crush on this man.

Favorite Poets:
(I have included my favorite poem by each)

Billy Collins-
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Walt Whitman-
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Robert Burns (to whom I am related)-
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**TheStranger** · 03-08-2013, 07:32 AM

Emily Dickinson for having a scientific viewpoint threaded throughout her poetry (she was also an incredibly prolific poet). Hart Crane, for attempting a mystical synthesis of American and sanctioning alcoholic ecstasy. I think.

Sartre, because the remembered notion of him is that he melded sociological inquiry with existential "analysis." Kafka, for pointed and layered prose.

**Lawtey** · 03-08-2013, 10:45 AM

Charles B. reminds me more of an ISTJ.

03-24-2011, 07:39 PM	#2
M1440r New Member [01%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 72	Writers: Probably either J.K. Rowling or Thomas Pynchon. Rowling is a sentimental favorite purely because her books really introduced me to the world of literature, and have always provided solace from the real world when I need it. Pynchon...well, I enjoy reading his books because he writes in such a loose yet calculated fashion. Every word has a purpose, and when you finish one of his books you seriously need to look up and ask yourself, "What the fuck did I just read?" Furthermore, I enjoy the mystery and aura that surrounds him.
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03-25-2011, 02:52 PM	#3
xRedSunflowerx Member [03%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 131	My favorite writers and reasons why: Bill Bryson - intelligent humor that literally (no pun intended!) makes me lol. John Grisham - characters utilize analytical skills, strategic planning, and specialized knowledge (traits associated with INTJs) to commit "perfect crimes" or resolve complex legal matters. Edgar Allen Poe - superb Gothic, macabre imagery. Shakespeare - witty, bawdy humor and double entendre; extensive contributions to the English language. I also read Dan Brown, Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, J.K. Rowling, and Kurt Vonnegut.
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03-25-2011, 03:25 PM	#4
XFire35 Member [24%] MBTI: INFJ Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 995	My favourite poem is "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop.
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03-25-2011, 07:39 PM	#5
katethegreat New Member [01%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Jan 2011 Posts: 3	Another vote for JK Rowling here. Jane Austen is delightfully snarky and writes the most elegant sentences. Kazuo Isiguro is another favorite.
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03-26-2011, 02:47 PM	#6
Luciferus Member [04%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Jan 2011 Posts: 187	I love Nietzsche, if he can be counted as a writer, for his philosophy is simply empowering and brings me enormous pleasure to read. I haven't read too much of poetry, but I liked Goethe's Faust a lot as well as "If" from Kipling.
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03-26-2011, 07:29 PM	#7
Rachminov Member [08%] MBTI: INFJ Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 329	WB Yeats I heard a reading of When You Are Old when I was a kid and then marched up to the library to find his complete works. A few hours later, I had finished reading through his poems and plays and just... je ne sais pas, I adore the way he writes.
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03-28-2011, 02:39 AM	#8
Kanizsa Member [06%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 262	musician terre thaemlitz To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Just read that article, he seems like he could be an INTJ.
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03-28-2011, 03:42 AM	#10
Antares Core Member [170%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 6,835	I've had many, but I don't tend to remember them. So most recently, Jean-Paul Sartre and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
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03-28-2011, 01:28 PM	#11
HAL 9000 Member [35%] MBTI: INFJ Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 1,429	Solzhenitsyn, Dostoyevsky, CS Lewis, GK Chesterton, Shakespeare, and Victor Hugo (with reservations).
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03-28-2011, 03:11 PM	#12
Reddkatz Core Member [184%] MBTI: InTJ Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 7,394	Favorite writers are Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas (after skipping the fillers) and Shakespeare. Favorite poet is Pablo Neruda.
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04-15-2011, 07:53 AM	#13
Humanzee New Member [01%] MBTI: xNxx Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 41	Jorge Luis Borges, for obvious reasons.
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04-17-2011, 12:58 AM	#15
Humanzee New Member [01%] MBTI: xNxx Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 41	@Merle It is frightening reading these things, because I relate exactly to what you are saying, yet feel like you are completely foreign because I haven't yet read or heard of a lot of the authors. It's a unique insight into what it must be like for someone I don't know to meet me for the first time. Thanks! How about this: Ego: Cervantes, Toole, Borges Id: Burroughs, Dostoyevsky, Kafka Superego: Asimov, Steinbeck, James I don't know where to put Flaubert.
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04-17-2011, 01:39 AM	#16
psykhe Core Member [236%] MBTI: iNfJ Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 9,467	I like books/stories that are socio-politically themed. Writer/Author: Jane Austen, Sidney Sheldon (don't laugh), Paulo Coelho, John Steinbeck, J.D. Salinger, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Poets : Rabindranath Tagore, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Frost
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04-19-2011, 09:41 AM	#17
timeineternity Member [20%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 829	Fyodor Dostoevsky, William Wordsworth, Percy Shelley, Allen Ginsberg, T.S. Eliot. I like all of these because I: immensely admire their technical skill / strongly relate to their experiences and thoughts / admire their creativity / admire their sincerity/honesty. ---------- Post added 04-19-2011 at 12:42 PM ---------- I'll have to check out Charles Bukowski.
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04-19-2011, 09:52 AM	#18
therrirl Member [34%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 1,388	E.E. Cummings . . . "She being brand new." You have to read this if you never have . . . the words are nothing if it is not pronounced with the correct inflections, then it is hilarious and sexy. it's a poem about a car, maybe? LOL Authors: Wiese/Hickman, Preston/Childs, Watt-Evans . . . many more.
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04-21-2011, 02:30 PM	#19
timeineternity Member [20%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 829	That's interesting that you like e.e. cummings. I strongly disliked what I've read of his work. What is it that you like about it? ---------- Post added 04-21-2011 at 05:31 PM ---------- How do all these INTJs like Jane Austen?
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04-22-2011, 04:49 AM	#20
Karneval Member [04%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 191	My favorite writers: Sir Arthur C. Doyle (I love the Sherlock Holmes stories) Georg Orwell & Ray Bradbury & H.G. Wells (I love their style of writing and dystopian literature) Jane Austen (I like her style of writing and strongly relate to some of the characters) Michael Ondaatje (I admire his technical skills) Oscar Wilde (I like the humor in his books) Alexandre Dumas (The Tree Musketeers and The Count of Monte Christo are just great books)
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04-22-2011, 05:19 AM	#21
DS Lovecraft Member [03%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 155	H.P Lovecraft - So much imagination in his stories and no one writes like he did. It's a shame horror has become slasher entertainment instead of true horror like Lovecraft wrote.
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03-07-2013, 07:47 PM	#22
Madden Member [13%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Feb 2013 Posts: 540	George Orwell, Bill Bryson, T.S. Eliot... Mikhail Bulgakov, Saki, William S. Burroughs... Allen Ginsberg, Christopher Hitchens, Irvine Welsh... Alexander Trocchi, Alasdair Gray, Kathleen Jamie... Robert Cormier..... Hmmm....I have way too many favourite writers and poets. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Edit: I forgot to add reasons for liking the writers that I do. All of them, in their own way, rebel against the status quo.
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03-08-2013, 07:12 AM	#23
vulpesvulpes Member [04%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Feb 2013 Posts: 198	Oh man, you should never ask a librarian this question... Favorite authors: Mark Z. Danielewski- He is such an innovative, interesting author and reading House of Leaves forever changed the way I view literature. Vladimir Nabokov- It wasn't Lolita that hooked me, but Invitation to a Beheading. I was enthralled with this book and read it twice in two days. J.R.R. Tolkien- ...because he builds worlds! Brian Jacques- As a kid, I read every book this man published. His Redwall series was so imaginative and detailed. I still love them. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn- His writing is so raw and powerful. Jean-Paul Sartre- I admittedly have a crush on this man. Favorite Poets: (I have included my favorite poem by each) Billy Collins- To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Walt Whitman- To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Robert Burns (to whom I am related)- To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Last edited by vulpesvulpes; 03-08-2013 at 08:29 AM. Reason: Formatting
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03-08-2013, 07:32 AM	#24
TheStranger Core Member [149%] MBTI: intp Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 5,976	Emily Dickinson for having a scientific viewpoint threaded throughout her poetry (she was also an incredibly prolific poet). Hart Crane, for attempting a mystical synthesis of American and sanctioning alcoholic ecstasy. I think. Sartre, because the remembered notion of him is that he melded sociological inquiry with existential "analysis." Kafka, for pointed and layered prose.
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03-08-2013, 10:45 AM	#25
Lawtey Member [04%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Dec 2012 Posts: 162	Charles B. reminds me more of an ISTJ.
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