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

(Mostly) Anonymous in Inner Space

All of the ancestors have returned and are living quiet lives in Inner Space.  

Choirs will fall silent, money will be thrown into the streets, and everywhere people will wonder what this dream was all about.

I was not cut out for childhood, I was already living part-time in Inner Space.

How can poets write anything without going down the spiral staircase to the darkness below?

I needed so many years to accomplish so little.

I'm back living at the Yew Tree Inn; nothing has changed, there is a Yew tree outside my window and children playing by the old wishing well.

There were some people dressed in colourful outfits, meditating and praying in Inner Space; we threw them out.

I no longer care what poets have to say, not if it's just more of the same old avoidance of Inner Space.

None of this was invented by me. It is what I found in Inner Space.

I was absorbed into the universe by cosmic energy; there's no playing around in Inner Space.

And now I'm a broken wheel going nowhere.

It's not bleak here in Inner Space, it's just a habit of mind to say that life is meaningless.

I liked poets but when I arrived in Inner Space I found few had joined me there, they were too busy trying to make names for themselves.

Most poets have nothing I want or need, they are not crowbars prying open the unconscious mind. Poets need to be crowbars.

  

If a poet can't be a crowbar he can at least be a hammer. 

                                                                       

Believe Nothing

When did I become a nihilist? I was born this way.

Inner Space is a hinterland of cosmic waste; here, everyone is either a nihilist, a poet, or both.

My defense is suited to one whose motto is "Believe nothing".

Poets used to be referred to as "ground breaking" or "visionary"; now they want to be referred to as "award winning poets", the visionaries are gone. 

I am well known in the territory of Inner Space.

About what am I incredulous? On most days, just about everything.

A whole new cohort of poets has arrived,  they are ambitious, self-conscious, and dedicated to self-promotion; in other words, younger versions of older poets.

The opposition of nihilists to all forms of censorship is famous in the history of Inner Space.

I am not the Pope's nose but I can still smell shit when it's all around me.

As we cross the green archetypal fields of poetry we reach the borders of Inner Space.

I have lived the nihilist's life: anonymous, introverted, and appalled.


Mister, in Inner Space we don't have room for anybody but poets and nihilists, so you'd better high tail it outta here before you're discovered.

Most religious and political beliefs offend my sense of nothingness.

A poet's apprenticeship can never be replaced with sitting in a classroom workshopping someone's poems.

Believing anything makes people stupid.

Photo taken at the Montreal Botanical Gardens, 2009

Poems are Reports from Inner Space

   Yew Tree Inn, 1 Beardwood, Blackburn, Lancs,
owned by my great great grandfather Thomas Parker, 1881 

There is no consensus of intelligence anymore, but there is Inner Space.

The first experience we have of Inner Space: our dreams.

Of course, if we censor our reports from Inner Space we end up with poetry that lacks authenticity.

I come from a dark place—I know that it will always be dark—I have spent too long in Inner Space.

Poetry has its own archaeology: it's what we excavate in Inner Space.

Did you follow your vision? Did you hear the voice calling you from Inner Space?

We fear the unconscious; it is a portal to Inner Space.

It was not a part of my repertoire of emotions; I was trapped in Inner Space.

Poems are reports from Inner Space.

November is "Inner Space Month".

Artifacts and the detritus of Inner Space wash up on the shores of consciousness.

One day everything you said from Inner Space will be used against you.

All artists are nihilists; they destroy the old in the act of reporting from Inner Space.  

The poet's journey in Inner Space is the shaman's journey. 

I live at the inn of Inner Space, the inn on the road through a forest; few come this way, few visit the inn, the Yew Tree Inn.

Where we live, those outposts of Inner Space.

I am sending out probes into Inner Space.

Someone emerges, one born from the genetic debris of Inner Space.

                                                                                                            2015

First Published: Urban Graffitti, http://urbgraffiti.com/writing/poems-are-reports-from-inner-space-by-stephen-morrissey/#more-6185, Edmonton, November 2015.

NOTE: A year after this was published I posted it on this blog, today I see that it is no longer online where it was originally published at Urban Graffitti. This is what is seriously wrong with online publishing and digital archives, they are subject to change without the author's notice: they can be deleted, altered, rewritten, removed, gone... Mark McCawley published this essay in good faith that it would stay online; after his passing his web zine, Urban Graffitti, was eventually taken offline. Losing UG we lost all the graphics, short stories, essays, etc., that were online. If Mark had these archived at LAC then I stand corrected.  

SM

11/05/2018