Okay
I'm more than willing to go along with the idea that poets do come into
something like a signature style, something readers tend to recognize as
signing their writing presence. But 'voice' when used for this in that
sense of 'finding your own voice' does tend to get in the way of perhaps
the most interesting forms of apprenticeship to language. It seems to have
a sense of a single. monolithic tone, perhaps? Or it allows the young poet
to stay too far within her/his own sensibility, given license to refuse to
learn from others, to read as widely as possible, etc.
I know I'm still learning from other poets, incorporating whatever
'lessons' (loaded term here, yes, I know) arrive along with the pleasure
because I don't want to, can't, stay in one lace (which that singular
'voice' seems to imply, at least in many of the cases I have encountered).
Which is why, perhaps, I find the term limiting. And seek some other way to
discuss that aspect of a poet's signature in her or his writing. And,
Pessoa, among others, sure plays havoc with that singular usage, anyway...
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
Beauty's whatever
makes the adrenalin run.
John Newlove
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