When the poem is addressed to a "you" (as in Campion's poem posted by Jon)
is that person/character/entity/concept the audience,
or is the audience the unknown reader?
For me, and, I'm guessing, for Campion - both.
When I'm writing from my own point of view to a specific "you"
I am saying something to that "you",
but I'm also saying to the reader, this is how I feel.
Mostly it's an ambiguous "you" anyway. I want the reader
to think of their own feelings. Campion's "you" is pretty ambiguous.
Could be God, could be a lover, could be another writer whose
work he loves, could be the personification of some concept,
could be all of the above.
Other times I'm assuming a voice. The poem is not autobiographical.
I'm speaking for someone, trying to put their emotions into words.
Trying to feel what it's like inside their head. In that case
they are my most important audience - my audience is actually
the "I" in the poem.
Janet
PS For Andrew: "up on the wall" was my first "publication" too. When
I first started writing I used to put my poems on the pinboard of my carrel
at university and people would read them and tell me what they thought.
There was one guy who was particularly interested - don't know if he was
just curious about me because I was so utterly different to him, or maybe
he had a crush on me (in which case he was wasting his time!)
At that age (20!) I had my head so far in the sky I wouldn't have had
a clue who had a crush on me.
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Janet Jackson
<[log in to unmask]>
www.arach.net.au/~huxtable/janet
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