You may want to add some "personality" to your verse, especially in sequences.
The most well-known examples are the collected poems of Robert Browning. Famous for his dramatic monologues in blank verse, Browning also wrote some in rhyme -- sometimes in experiments so bold few dared to try them (at least that I know of).
He almost always invented a character (or used historical ones) to "deliver" his poem, prompting the reader to discern for themselves who was "talking" and why they were saying just what Browning had them say.
Swinburne (mentioned many posts ago) and Thomas Hardy (same) were among the few who emulated Browning's rhetorical method with success. Both also made their own forays into metrical expression, again following Browning's example.
But there's another, more subtle, use of developing a "persona" for some of your poems. Again, we return to Shakespeare: it has been suggested that his sonnets are less like letters or diary entries than they may appear.
The master dramatist may have chosen elements of other people's personalities, or (more likely) just invented some of those elements, and carefully blended them with his own to create a "spokesman" for his personal poems.
This is pretty much "upper-level" stuff for a writer: it takes a lot of self-knowledge to see how this could be done as an individual, and a lot of skill to actually pull it off.
But I thought I'd pass it along now, in case you have some of those poems that are a little too personal you can't bring yourself to burn.
Ask yourself this: does the mirror occasionally reflect someone else?

No comments:
Post a Comment