Defining Voice in Poetry

The discovery of a poet’s voice brings authenticity to the poet’s work, that the work communicates the content and form of the poem as well as the poet’s inner being, his or her soul or psyche. 

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It isn’t the sound of your voice or how well you read a poem out loud that is voice. It isn’t a poem for several voices. It isn’t slam poetry or performance poetry. It’s the essence of who you are as it is expressed in the way you write, it is your own original distinctive individual voice.

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Voice in poetry, to be authentic, must be true to the self of the poet, to the inner, subjective, self-perception, self-knowledge, of the poet. Voice has to be authentic and true to the poet’s inner perception. Poetry happens when psyche has access to the world.

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The point is to discover one’s voice, and then you continue writing and voice changes in what one writes, but the discovery of one’s authentic voice is a border one needs to cross in order to write the work that follows, work that one can stand behind, that gives one the self-assurance to expresses one’s vision. 

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Voice is a vehicle for the content of poetry; content expands when an authentic voice is discovered. Voice is not style, style changes but voice is the expression of the inner, psychological dimension of the poet; voice is the expression of psyche. Voice changes just as our bodies change with age, but once an authentic voice is discovered then voice will remain authentic to the poet, no matter what the poet is saying or in what form it is being said.

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There is no way to find one’s voice, it must be discovered by the poet, but not all poets find their voice in poetry; in a way, an authentic voice finds the poet. After voice is discovered the person writing poems is a real poet, not someone who also happens to write occasional poems. Voice in poetry comes to you, you can work on your poetry but that doesn’t guarantee you will find your voice; voice is like any other creative work that comes to the person. If someone who writes poems never finds his voice, he or she is not a poet. How can they be when writing poetry is predicated on writing from an authentic voice? This does not diminish what a poet writes before the discovery of voice, some great poems can be written before voice is discovered as a prelude to finding one’s voice, as a precursor to the discovery of the poet’s authentic voice.

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First, you have to be born a poet and realize you are a poet by writing poetry, then you have to put in your 10,000 hours of apprenticeship. There’s nothing romantic or fun about being a poet. It’s a lot of hard work to be a poet and as you get older it gets harder and harder, not only because it is solitary work but because of all the additional work that comes with writing and building a body of work; for instance, the time consuming work of organizing and placing one’s archives, working on one’s selected poems, keeping up correspondence, managing what you have created over a lifetime, and the effort to meet the demands of life as one gets older. If you live long enough you, too, will not be immune to the demands of old age.

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Voice is the expression of the poet’s integrity as a poet. Voice is the expression of the poet’s character, sensibility, and integrity as a human being. This is why it has such importance to poets.

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Discovering one’s voice does not disqualify or negate what the poet wrote before this discovery, but it is a sign of the poet’s maturity as a poet. 

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Voice is when we speak from the heart, from the soul, without pretension or affectation, but with honesty and truth without censoring ourselves, with only one conviction, to be true to our inner necessity, to what we have to say (not what we want to say or should say, or think we should say) but abandoning these things of the self, to speak from the real and authentic self, not the layers of self, but from the heart and from the soul.

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The genesis of both the content of the work and the voice expressing the work are simultaneous, they can’t be separated. An authentic voice is discovered in writing poems.

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Voice in poetry is not one’s “style” of writing; style may be narrative, minimal, formal, visual poetry, or what have you. Voice is access to psyche from which poems are written. If a poet hasn’t discovered his or her “voice” they haven't become a poet.

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A poet can’t “search for a voice”, but all poets need to find their voice. Voice comes to the poet, it isn’t something you can “find”. Voice is the expression of the poet’s psyche; it is the congruence of events that allow the poem to authentically express the inner, spiritual and psychological being of the poet.

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Stephen Morrissey                                            

November 2012 – June 2013,  Montreal

 Revised: 2 October 2024