Voices and Style

When we listen to a person speaking, we hear a particular music unlike any other. The stamp of someone?s voice is as individual as a fingerprint; if we know someone well, we instantly recognize the tone, pitch, resonance of that voice whenever we encounter it. In poetry, the term voice has been used to describe that sense of a unique presence on the page ? an unmistakable something that becomes the mark of the writer, a way of saying things that is the writer?s own. We listen to the voices of the poets who came before us, and we try to learn from them, emulate them, without sounding like them. We read contemporary writers and imitate their line breaks, or their similes, and worry that we shouldn?t, that we?ll only create bad reproductions instead of original work. We want a presence that convinces, one that engages and seduces a reader into the world of our poems, a voice a reader will want to listen to.

In actual speech, we don?t choose our voice. We grow up inheriting speech patterns and physical structures that largely determine how we sound. In poetry, we may write with a voice that is also determined by things beyond our control ? an innate sense of language, early education, and previous exposure to other writers. But just as someone might go to a speech therapist to rid himself of a stutter, or erase a particular accent, writers can develop their voice so that it becomes a more flexible instrument to articulate their concerns. Style is really interchangeable with voice in this sense, and it?s useful to remember that style in a writer is revealed by the characteristic choices a writer makes. But what are the choices a writer makes that constitute a recognizable voice and style?: Is the voice in the poem ours or is it a fiction? What words will we choose to create a tone? All of this is in part determined by who we are. Lucille Clifton (?homage to my hips?) said, ?I am a black woman poet and I sound like one,? even when she is writing about more bodies and more women and more hips than just her own. Her tone is optimistic and empowering. Langston Hughes, when asked to ?write a page out of you? (?Theme for English B?) based it in real life experiences to a degree, but changed some of the details to help explore issues of race and common ground among races. His tone suggests some of the tensions of being in the minority. William Carlos Williams? note, ?This Is Just to Say,? suggests a ?sorry, but not sorry? tone as you identified it in class today, and was based in actual experience.

For this poem, try to ?write a page out of you,? not necessarily emulating Hughes (although that would be fine), but telling something based in real experience yet fictionalized. Make the voice in your poem be you, but at the same time not you, and let your words convey a tone, an attitude toward your topic. This can be a rewrite of one of your earlier poems or something entirely new. In addition to writing your poem, provide a brief analysis of the ?technique(s) you used to achieve your purpose and tone. Use the following format:

Name of Technique
Phrase from Your Poem
Explanation of Effect/How technique achieves your purpose and tone
Simile
?wrapped up like garbage?
Shows that society has treated Miss Rosie as an object to be discarded now that she has lost her worth. This contributes to my tone of pity for Miss Rosie because she was once beautiful but now is compared to something useless and disgusting.
Once you have opened your Page, click on Edit Page, put your text beneath Poem 6 in the box that opens (I’d suggest writing your poem as a Word doc and then copying and pasting it to your Page so that you have it saved somewhere other than on the Page itself), and when you’re done, click on Save Changes.

Poem 8: Images

Imagery may be defined as the representation through language of sense experience. Poetry appeals directly to our senses, of course, through its music and rhythms, which we actually hear when it is read aloud. But indirectly, it appeals to our senses through imagery, the representation to the imagination of sense experience. The word ?image? perhaps most often suggests a mental picture, something seen in the mind?s eye ? and visual imagery is the kind of imagery that occurs most frequently in poetry. But an image may also represent a sound (auditory imagery); a smell (olfactory imagery); a taste (gustatory imagery); touch, such as hardness, softness, wetness, or heat and cold (tactile imagery); an internal sensation, such as hunger, thirst, fatigue, or nausea (organic imagery); movement or tension in the muscles or joints (kinesthetic imagery); or literal movement, such as swaying or rocking (kinetic imagery)..

For this poem, choose one of the options below:

1) Choose a small, easily overlooked object in your home, car, classroom, backpack, etc. that has special significance to you. Write a paragraph-long, excruciatingly detailed description of the item, putting at least four senses into play. Without making any direct statements about the item?s importance to you, try to let the imagery convey the mood you associate with it.

2) It is said that the sense of smell is the most primitive, that a scent can take us back instantly into a memory. Jot down some smells that are appealing to you. For each one, describe the memory or experience associated with that smell, making sure you bring at least three other senses into your description.

3) Write a paragraph that describes the sensuous qualities of a food you enjoy, invoking at least three or four senses. Or try a description using vivid images (again, at least three or four senses) to evoke a powerful response (positive or negative) to a particular food.

Now reread the poems by Pound, Buson (and the section on haiku, pp. 454-5), and ?The Red Wheelbarrow? by William Carlos Williams, p. 406. Write a short poem based on your prose description as follows: 1) ?reduce? your description to a poem containing a significant title and a two-line vivid image as Pound did in ?In a Station of the Metro?; 2) write a haiku based on the description, trying to make it as allusive and suggestive as possible (these poems typically present an intense emotion or vivid image of nature which are also designed to lead to a spiritual insight); or 3) Using different words, imitate the imagery, shape, and sound of William Carlos Williams?s ?The Red Wheelbarrow.? A form is anything done a second time. The first time somebody wrote a sonnet, it was not a sonnet; the second time somebody wrote one, and the third ? then we began to call them sonnets. Consider that you are writing a newly discovered form of poetry called a wheelbarrow. You can define a wheelbarrow as four two-line stanzas; each first line has three words, each second line has one word; each one-word second line has two syllables; each three-word first line has either three or four syllables. Do your best to approximate the form and write your own wheelbarrow.

. Once you have opened your Page, click on Edit Page, put your text beneath Poem 7 in the box that opens (I’d suggest writing your poem as a Word doc and then copying and pasting it to your Page so that you have it saved somewhere other than on the Page itself), and when you’re done, click on Save Changes. In addition to writing your poem, provide a brief analysis of the ?technique(s) you used to achieve your purpose and tone. Use the following format:

Name of Technique
Phrase from Your Poem
Explanation of Effect/How technique achieves your purpose and tone
Simile
?wrapped up like garbage?
Shows that society has treated Miss Rosie as an object to be discarded now that she has lost her worth. This contributes to my tone of pity for Miss Rosie because she was once beautiful but now is compared to something useless and disgusting.
Poem 9: Simile and Metaphor

Imagine a literal world, in which nothing was ever seen in terms of anything else. Falling blossoms wouldn?t remind you of snow. A dancer?s sensuous grace wouldn?t resemble the movements of a lover; the shape of a cloud would never suggest a horse or a sailing ship. If such a world were possible, it would be a severely impoverished one.

In fact, we live in a figurative world; our language and our thinking, our very perceptions, are metaphoric. We continually make comparisons and connections, often without even realizing that we are doing so, so comfortable are we with seeing in this way. Contrary to what you might think if you are just beginning to study the craft of poetry, the use of figurative language isn?t a new skill; it?s one you already know. The trouble is that most of the figures in our language are so common and have been heard soften that they?re virtually useless for poetry, which deals not in clich?d, worn-out expressions but in surprising ones that reveal new connections or cast a different angle of light on an idea or experience. ?Love is a rose? would not be high on the list of poetic metaphors, but try ?In my book love is darker/ than cola. It can burn/ a hole clean through you,? from C.D. Wright, or Charles Bukowski?s ?Love is a dog from hell.? Good metaphors and similes make connections that deepen, expand, and energize; they stimulate the imagination.

In developing your own figurative images, don?t worry if your language is clumsy or confusing at first. Just have patience, and keep digging.

For Poem 9, try one of the following options. If you choose to experiment with figures of speech beyond simile and metaphor, you may want to refer back to the Figures of Speech page on your Canvas site.

There?s an old joke that goes, ?Your teeth are like stars. They come out at night.? The second sentence reverses our expectations of ?like stars,? similar to the reversal that occurs in Margaret Atwood?s ?you fit into me.? See if you can dream up some similes that change direction like this and surprise a reader?s expectations of where they?re headed. Use one of them to write a brief poem.
In a poem, describe an activity ? cleaning the house, fishing, painting a picture, taking a bath, dancing, cooking a meal ? which could serve as a metaphor for your life, for how you are in the world.
Write a brief 7-10 line poem with an abstract title: Loneliness, Fear, Desire, Ecstasy, Greed, Suffering, Pleasure. Make the poem a metaphor for the title, without using the abstraction in the poem.
Write a ?negative simile? poem: ?It wasn?t like _______, or ________ . . .?
Write a poem using an extended simile or metaphor that goes on for at
least five lines.
Choose one of the poems you?ve written for your Chapbook and add at least three similes or metaphors to it. (Don?t replace the original ? add this as Poem 9).
Post both your prose writing and the resultant poem on your Wiki (click on Pages on your Canvas site) on or before Wednesday, December 4th. Once you have opened your Page, click on Edit Page, put your text beneath Poem 8 in the box that opens (I’d suggest writing your poem as a Word doc and then copying and pasting it to your Page so that you have it saved somewhere other than on the Page itself), and when you’re done, click on Save Changes. In addition to writing your poem, provide a brief analysis of the ?technique(s) you used to achieve your purpose and tone. Use the following format:

Name of Technique
Phrase from Your Poem
Explanation of Effect/How technique achieves your purpose and tone
Simile
?wrapped up like garbage?
Shows that society has treated Miss Rosie as an object to be discarded now that she has lost her worth. This contributes to my tone of pity for Miss Rosie because she was once beautiful but now is compared to something useless and disgusting.