The discovery of a
poet’s voice brings an authenticity to the poet’s work, that the poet’s voice communicates
the content of the poem as well as the poet’s inner being, his or her soul.
Voice in poetry is the expression of the soul.
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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, 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 of the poet. The voice has to be authentic and true to the
poet’s inner perception. Voice has to be an expression of the authentic self,
not the self covered over with falsehood and conceit.
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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, but it is also inseparable from 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. The expression of voice changes
just as our actual voice changes with age, but once an authentic voice is
discovered then voice will remain authentic to the poet, no matter what the
poet is saying.
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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; however, after voice is discovered the person writing
poems is a real poet, not someone who also happens to write poems. If someone
who writes poems never finds his voice, he is not a poet. How can he 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, in some way voice
might exist as a precursor to the discovery of the poet’s authentic voice, or
at least the reader can see the potential for the birth of voice in the early
work.
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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 it. It’s a lot of hard work to be a poet and as you get older it gets
harder and harder, not because of writing poems but because of all the pother
work that comes with writing and building a body of work; for instance,
organizing and placing your archives, working on your selected poems, writing
criticism, keeping up correspondence, managing what you have created a lifetime
building, and so on.
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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 signifier of the poet’s maturity as a poet.
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Voice is when we
speak from the heart, from the soul, without pretention or affectation, but
honestly 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,
with honesty, 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. They are the same process. The work is written in the
voice as the voice is discovered and as the work is written.
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Voice in poetry is
not one’s “style” of writing; style may be narrative, minimal, visual poetry,
or what have you. Voice is access to psyche from which poems are written. If a
poet hasn’t discovered his “voice” he hasn’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, the congruence of events that allow the poem to authentically express
the inner, spiritual and psychological, being of the poet.
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