Blog 19: What and Who is the Voice of a Poem?

Hello there! After last week, I promised to give you a more positive topic. And you have one. If you have kept up with my social media or checked out my latest news and website, you will have seen that Angel Editing has now teamed up with a poetry editor. Shannon Éilis is here to help all you poets out there make the most out of your poetry. Today, however, I am excited to share with you her first blog, which is all about poetic voice. Take it away Shannon.

If you were to ask a room full of poets to define the meaning of poetic voice, you would probably receive a wide variety of definitions depending on each poet’s idiosyncratic perception of what voice actually is. You see, voice is a rather multifaceted and ambiguous concept. It encompasses a vast range of thematic and stylistic components that poets employ to construct authentic and unique poetry.

So, what exactly is poetic voice? Broadly speaking, voice refers to the individual literary style and distinctive group of characteristics utilised by the author to express their desired intention. It is a concept rooted in the specific use of poetic devices, structural restrictions, and grammatical rules that distinguish one poet’s voice from the next. We can assess voice in terms of how the author or poetic speaker addresses the reader or subject matter, as well as through the personality presented to the reader in the poem. It is an amalgamation of diverse elements that contribute to the emotional effect that the content has on the reader. These elements include:

• Style

  
  

  Poetic style refers to the specific methods in which language and structure are utilised in a way that is characteristic of a certain poet, form, or even period in time. It is another broad term that encompasses various elements, such as the chosen poetic form, whether that be the restrictive structure and specific rhythm, rhyme, and metre of a fixed form, like the sonnet or villanelle, or the irregular line and stanza structures of an open form poem.                                                                                                The diction and syntax employed also contribute to the overall stylistic quality. Diction refers to the choice of words and phrases used. These may be concrete and literal, or they may be more abstract and figurative. Diction can also be colloquial and representative of the poetic speaker’s everyday culture, language, and dialect, or it can be formal. The arrangement of these words, phrases, and clauses, or syntax, is often manipulated by poets who divert from the typical grammatical rules to create emphasis on certain images or feelings for emotional impact.

  
  

  Figurative language and the formation of imagery are also key components of poetic style. Figurative language is the use of descriptive language and expressions or patterns of sound that depart from the conventional meaning or standard syntax. It is utilised by poets to create emphasis on images that evoke sense-impressions, themes or feelings that extend upon the literal meaning of words. Common figurative expressions, or tropes, include simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole and litotes (overstatement and understatement), antithesis, metonymy (referring to something by something else that it is closely associated with, for example ‘ears’ for ‘listening’) and irony, amongst others.

  
  

• Tone 

  
  

  The tone of a poem is, yet again, another vague literary device that conveys the poet’s or the poetic speaker’s attitude towards the reader, for example, this could be formal, intimate, conversational or abrasive. It also reveals their attitude towards the subject matter, this could be sentimental, nostalgic, critical or ironic, etc. The poet’s intentions, perceptions and emotions regarding the content and theme are often revealed in the tone of the piece. The tone then defines the overall atmosphere of a poem and the mood in which the reader is supposed to feel and engage with.

  
  

• Point of view 

  
  

  Whereas voice is the distinction between the diverse types of poetic speaker in terms of how they address the subject matter or reader, point of view is the poetic speaker’s perception of events. It is the vantage point from which the story is told and determines how the reader experiences the poem’s narrative through the poetic speaker’s perspective. Using the first-person perspective (I, me, my) or second-person perspective (you, yours) restricts the reader’s knowledge and offers a limited point of view; in contrast, a third-person perspective (she/he, her/his) may be omniscient, therefore showing unrestricted knowledge.

Now, who is the voice of a poem? This can be a tricky question in poetry, as the author is not always the speaker. They are, however, often the assumed speaker. This may be because of poetry’s long and intimate connection with the spoken word and lyricism, as well as the often personal and emotional quality that permeates through various poetic forms. Another reason for the confusion surrounding the distinction between poet and poetic speaker may be the prominence of the first-person perspective in poetry. Whilst the use of first-person pronouns offers a limited, thus often intimate perspective, it is also important to recognise how the utilisation of the first-person perspective in fiction is not frequently associated with the author as it is in poetry.

The way in which a poet utilises voice is often, if not always, heavily influenced upon their cultural and socio-economical background, as well as their lived experiences based around these unavoidable circumstances. Maybe one poet uses the first-person perspective to restrict knowledge because they themselves were restricted in their upbringing, or maybe another uses colloquial language when writing about a specific cultural dialect. However, this influence does not directly imply that the poet is the speaker. Like fiction, poetry can become a sequence of narratives inspired by the experiences of others, known or unknown, that contribute to the development and understanding of personal poetic voice through the experimentation with perception. The who then becomes either the actual poet, the given poetic speaker or persona created by the poet, or the assumed speaker that is interpreted by the reader and requires critical discernment to distinguish between poet and persona.

In conclusion, the poetic voice is not what is being said or shown by the poetic speaker, it is how it is being said and shown to the reader. It embodies the distinctive personality or style a poet implements, and the way in which a poet expresses the intricacies of content to establish a specific, deeper emotional response or understanding with the reader.

Written by Shannon Éilis

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