Comments on:

By: David V

David V — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 02:34:00 +0000

“But writing in persona can trick us, momentarily, into freedom while we write.”

Oh, yeah. That’s what I need all right – the guts to ignore the internal editor. But If I do get a persona poems onto paper, I have to remember not to show it to my mother – just not an argument I want to have…

By: realitywrites

realitywrites — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:37:00 +0000

I echo the thanks for this. I’ve had a few persona poems in mind – mainly art-related pieces – and oddly enough I was also reading about persona poems in a book about writing last night – but your list is the real ass-kicker to get them going!

By: megalopoet

megalopoet — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:24:00 +0000

Thanks so much for posting this. The exercise ideas are good for students, and for us poets. Hope you’re continuing to feel better.

By: Karen J. Weyant

Karen J. Weyant — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:49:00 +0000

Enjoyed the post, and especially the suggested assignment. I am finding that my students are often uncomfortable writing about themselves, so pretending to be someone else, at least for a little while, will be great.

By: Anne

Anne — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 05:29:00 +0000

Terrific post. I took an undergrad workshop with Maura Stanton and she had us writing persona poems — I rebelled against it big time at the time (I was 20 years old and wanted to write about MYSELF dammit!) but in retrospect it’s a perfect exercise for people of that age/developmental stage, because of how it leads them outside their own little selves.

And related to your last point, I think that as we mature as writers we are more and more able to incorporate elements of persona into even “autobiographical” poems — letting go of the need to stick to “but that’s how it happened!” and learning to dig past the facts to get at the emotional truth. Heck, my poem in Barn Owl Review is both persona and autobiography; it’s about a relationship I had, but we didn’t really “become invisible” or “almost die” … but to say that we did feels like it gets at a deeper truth than to say “yeah, we had a crappy breakup.”

Anyway! Great post. 🙂

By: Collin

Collin — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:00:00 +0000

Yes, thanks for this post. I love writing persona poems and for some reason I always write them as women. There’s a Patty Hearst persona poem in the new chapbook and I’ve got a few others in the folder including one as T.S. Eliot’s wife, Vivienne.

By: Joannie

Joannie — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:23:00 +0000

Thanks for the post. I especially like the idea of choosing two opposing characters and writing a poem for each. That ought to open things up.