Searching for the Third Voice
Why and How To Use Characters in Your Poems
"Persona poems," where the poet becomes someone or something else, are not just for children. Careful creation of a character can add colour and power to your poem.
After you have been writing poetry for a while, and have experimented with technique and a form or two, you may discover that strange people start popping up in your writing. For example, a child with an identifiable character might appear when your poem is seeking to explore the world from a less adult, more innocent perspective.
Don’t be alarmed. The use of persona or more fully-fledged characters is an honourable tradition in writing poetry. But there are some “dos and don’ts” that you may wish to consider.
Why Persona or Character Might Strengthen Your Poetry
T.S. Eliot (On Poetry and Poets, London: Faber and Faber, 1957) identified three voices in poetry: the poet talking to himself “or nobody”; the poet addressing an audience; and the third voice, “the voice of the poet when he attempts to create a dramatic character speaking in verse.”
Eliot’s comments on the third voice came from his experience writing plays in poetry. However, even if your poems are not quite Shakespearean drama, here are some reasons why you might occasionally speak in the third voice.
1. You may wish to put a little bit of distance between yourself, as an individual, and the things your poem is needing to say. Writing poetry means discovering ideas and connections and feelings which you may not have considered fully with your rational mind. In this case, you want to send a clear signal that the poet and the work of the imagination, the poem, are separate.
2. Similarly, you may seek to explore ideas through the eyes of someone of a different gender, age, race, or social circumstance. Or, you may wish to highlight an issue or raise questions by taking on the persona of, for example, an island drowning as a consequence of global warming. Poets writing for children often use “mask poems” to “become” dogs or rocks or elements such as rain.
3. Developing a persona may teach you something about yourself as a poet. Eliot described a two-way process of creating a character: “I believe that the author imparts something of himself to his characters, but I also believe that he is influenced by the characters he creates.” A character that proves attractive to the poet may have a “life” through more than one poem.
Using Poetic Voice with Caution
There are many possible advantages to the use of the third voice in your poetry, but you need to take care if your poem is to feel authentic to the reader.
First, it is important to be clear on whether you are creating a fully-fledged character—with a developed personality and history as well as a manner of speaking and style—or a “persona”. Beaty and Matchett in their 1965 book Poetry: From Statement to Meaning (New York: Oxford University Press) defined persona as “a surrogate of the poet, but neither himself in the full literal sense nor someone else.” That is, a persona is something of an alter-ego for the poet.
Eliot warns of the “abyss” between writing for the first and writing for the third voice. Especially if you are introducing a character to your poem, you will need to have thought enough about him or her, and provided sufficient “life”, that you are credible to your readers.
Eliot also observes that if your so-called character is merely “telling” or pontificating to the audience, you are actually in fact using the second voice. Modern audiences in general prefer to be “shown”, through the use of devices such as metaphor, rather than “told”.
Despite the challenges, experimenting with different voices in your poetry can be fun and provide you with new ways to make your poems memorable. Chances are you will find it well worth the effort.
