Read: Poet’s Companion: ‘Voice and Style,” p. 115 [RR]

James Galvan

English 306

Steve Pett

Read: Poet’s Companion: ‘Voice and Style,” p. 115 [RR]

1. When we listen to a person speaking, we hear a particular music unlike any other.



2. 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 works.



3. We want a presence that convinces, one that engages and seduces a reader onto the world of our poems, a voice a reader will want to listen to.



4. In actual speech, we don’t choose our voice.



5. If you haven’t done much reading or writing of poetry, you’re going to make your choices based on a narrow sampling of what you know, which might range from the sappy clichés of greeting cards to some fuzzily-remembered poets from earlier centuries crammed down your throat in high school, to popular song lyrics.