For writers of poetry, there is danger in using voice.
Let me put that into a lower register: voice can be risky in a poem. Voice conveys emotion; not only does it ferry the emotions of the writer to the poem, but it arouses, potentially, emotions or at least reactions and judgments in the reader and listener. Writers can't always, maybe can't ever fully, control the emotive effects of their poems in others. You go for irony or satire in your poem; your readers hear cynicism, or worse, artlessness. You intend a cry from the heart, your heart, but your reader hears peevishness. For you, the voice in your poem is one of experience and wisdom, but your readers hear Polonius or Foghorn Leghorn.
Sometimes, you can adopt a voice in a poem that others might see as appropriative and offensive, as in this story reported in the New York Times last year.
What are you up to when creating a voice or voices in a poem, and what kinds of voices do you create? (These are not rhetorical questions . . . I mean for you to ponder them in your own writing.)
Are you, like a dramatist, creating the voices of characters when writing a poem? And if you are, do you consider the motives that drive them and that make them speak as they do in your poem?
Are you, like an actor, speaking in a voice that is not your real voice? Are you using the poem to "try on" another voice, to disappear into some other person's "sound" and "sense," and if you are, why?
And if you are creating and/or inhabiting these other fictitious voices, what is your relation to them as the author? Do you, Mr./Mrs./Ms Author, have a voice in such a poem? If so, how does that voice operate--omnisciently? as a co-equal? a saboteur? an egger-on? a judge?
Let me put that into a lower register: voice can be risky in a poem. Voice conveys emotion; not only does it ferry the emotions of the writer to the poem, but it arouses, potentially, emotions or at least reactions and judgments in the reader and listener. Writers can't always, maybe can't ever fully, control the emotive effects of their poems in others. You go for irony or satire in your poem; your readers hear cynicism, or worse, artlessness. You intend a cry from the heart, your heart, but your reader hears peevishness. For you, the voice in your poem is one of experience and wisdom, but your readers hear Polonius or Foghorn Leghorn.
Sometimes, you can adopt a voice in a poem that others might see as appropriative and offensive, as in this story reported in the New York Times last year.
What are you up to when creating a voice or voices in a poem, and what kinds of voices do you create? (These are not rhetorical questions . . . I mean for you to ponder them in your own writing.)
Are you, like a dramatist, creating the voices of characters when writing a poem? And if you are, do you consider the motives that drive them and that make them speak as they do in your poem?
Are you, like an actor, speaking in a voice that is not your real voice? Are you using the poem to "try on" another voice, to disappear into some other person's "sound" and "sense," and if you are, why?
And if you are creating and/or inhabiting these other fictitious voices, what is your relation to them as the author? Do you, Mr./Mrs./Ms Author, have a voice in such a poem? If so, how does that voice operate--omnisciently? as a co-equal? a saboteur? an egger-on? a judge?
Here's another way of looking at voice in a poem . . . When you say "I," whom do you mean?
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Lots of questions to think about! But back on the subject of voice and discovery, when you write a poem, you create opportunities (or problems) involving voice that can be exciting, rewarding, and highly satisfying, or sometimes off-putting, offensive, even dangerous.
For one thing, you can create characters with voices you don't or wouldn't ordinarily attempt in other circumstances. The example reported by the NYT I reference above is instructive: I believe that writer (a young, white male) is trying on the voice of someone he isn't and can never be (a homeless person of color). Is he right to do that? Does he have the right? Many people in the twittersphere didn't think so at the time and probably don't think so today (see Roxanne Gay, quoted in the Times story). He was accused, basically, of wearing black face. But might he also have been trying to walk in somebody else's shoes and using one of the only tools available to him for that purpose--his art? Was he adopting voice strategically, as a means to self-discovery? Hmmmm . . . more questions.
For another, you can create voice modulations you may not often adopt otherwise. What is it like to beg, to lash out, to express undying love or gratitude, to bemoan, to ridicule? Modulating a voice in a poem can take you there. What's it like to switch personalities or tones mid-statement or in quick succession? To undercut one voice with another? You can try that in a poem.
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The most important things about voice, for me, are simply knowing that it is there, always, and that I can deploy voice(s) for artistic purposes.
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