6 Hey everyone…I’m doing a short talk tomorrow on persona poems and would love to hear what your favorite persona poem is…
SPLAB: Auburn Transit Center, 110 Second St. S.W., No. 100. “Living Room” hours are 7-9 p.m. * The “Living Room” writers critique circle will be hosted by Lana Hechtman Ayers with guest Jeannine Hall Gailey Oct. 11. * “Living Room” will be hosted by David Rizzi Oct. 18. Visit http://www.splab.org.
Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington and the author of Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and SFPA’s Elgin Award, Field Guide to the End of the World. Her latest, Flare, Corona from BOA Editions, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She’s also the author of PR for Poets, a Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, and JAMA.
David Vincenti
Well, no one’s got better judgment for these than you, oh expert practitioner, but since you asked.
I like to start at the beginning, and Browning’s “My Last Duchess” first attracted me to persona poems. Duchess is too often overlooked outside 10th grade for ye olde verbiage.
In a more modern bent, Lucille Clifton’s “Adam Thinking” and “Eve Thiking” are good, bite-sized, and go over well.
Tom C. Hunley
The middle section of “The Sheep Child” by James Dickey
Give my best to Paul Nelson at SPLAB.
Peter
Any by Ai: esp. “The Good Shepherd, Atlanta, 1981”
jeannine
David – thanks for flattery 🙂 and for the good suggestions – I think I may use the Clifton!
Tom – I’ll say hi to Paul if I see him! And thanks for “The Sheep Child,” – disturbing – I like it!
jeannine
Thanks Peter – I do like that poem – so creepy!
David Vincenti
So how’d the talk go?