Voice [Exercise #5]
Due Wednesday, March 29
Hi Darlings!
We had some wonderful ghazals last week, and I’m as thankful as always for each of you being part of this community. A friendly reminder: if you submit a piece, please make sure you are leaving at least two pieces of feedback for your fellow writers. Try to make sure your feedback specific — talk about detailed elements that you enjoyed, and offer areas for improvement or further exploration. Check out this for ideas:
This week, I’d like to explore voice in our poems. I’ve noticed in my own writing that I tend to write from my own experience, and my pieces often feature an “I” that is essentially indistinguishable from my actual self.
One thing that has really liberated my writing is to realize that the “I” of a poem is not myself. It is a construction, a separate entity entirely. Once you separate the “I” from who you are, you can say things you would never say or think. It can be an awesome exercise to break out of your own “I” and adopt a different persona as the speaker of the poem, so this week we’ll give it a shot.
The goal this week is to write persona poems in the first-person singular, in which “a character is taken on by a poet to speak in a first-person poem.” According to Rebecca Hazelton, “In a persona poem, a writer often speaks directly to readers and, in doing so, forges an almost interpersonal relationship with them.”
The task is simple and rather open-ended — write your poem from the perspective of a speaker who is distinctly NOT yourself. One great shortcut is to pick a photograph, and write from the perspective of one of the people in it.
There are many wonderful examples of persona in poetry, but here are a few poems with a distinctive first-person speaker to get your juices flowing.
Bluebird
Charles Bukowski
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he’s singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?
Letter to Kathy from Wisdom
Richard Hugo
My dearest Kathy: When I heard your tears and those of your
mother over the phone from Moore, from the farm
I’ve never seen and see again and again under the most
uncaring of skies, I thought of this town I’m writing from,
where we came lovers years ago to fish. How odd
we seemed to them there, a lovely young girl and a fat
middle 40’s man they mistook for father and daughter
before the sucker lights in their eyes flashed on. That was
when we kissed their petty scorn to dust. Now, I eat alone
in the cafe we ate in then, thinking of your demons, the sad
days you’ve seen, the hospitals, doctors, the agonizing
breakdowns that left you ashamed. All my other letter
poems I’ve sent to poets. But you, you were a poet then,
curving lines I love against my groin. Oh, my tenderest
raccoon, odd animal from nowhere scratching for a home,
please believe I want to plant whatever poem will grow
inside you like a decent life. And when the wheat you’ve known
forever sours in the wrong wind and you smell it
dying in those acres where you played, please know
old towns we loved in matter, lovers matter, playmates, toys,
and we take from our lives those days when everything moved,
tree, cloud, water, sun, blue between two clouds, and moon,
days that danced, vibrating days, chance poem. I want one
who’s wondrous and kind to you. I want him sensitive
to wheat and how wheat bends in cloud shade without wind.
Kathy, this is the worst time of day, nearing five, gloom
ubiquitous as harm, work shifts changing. And our lives
are on the line. Until we die our lives are on the mend.
I’ll drive home when I finish this, over the pass that’s closed
to all but a few, that to us was always open, good days
years ago when our bodies were in motion and the road rolled out
below us like our days. Call me again when the tears build
big inside you, because you were my lover and you matter,
because I send this letter with my hope, my warm love. Dick
Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love —
I and my Annabel Lee —
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me —
Yes! — that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we —
Of many far wiser than we —
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea —
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
