Poetic Persona

[rayheinrich]

Bukowski had one hell of a persona. He was a much more thoughtful, measured
man than the one we imagine writing his poems (if I'm to believe accounts of
his interviews, his letters).

Which is the problem of "persona" per se: It's the ultimate subjective.

Oliver Sacks -- famous neurologist, author of Awakenings --
said we had an identity for every important person/event/year/etc.
and that some of them varied significantly from the others. But
since we were usually one at a time, we believed there was just
one of us. Part of the nervousness, confusion that we experience in
new situations, meeting new people, even having two friends we know
separately come together with us for the first time, is the result
of not having a predefined identity and having to construct one
on-the-fly.

I know when I read poems I wrote many years ago, or notes about my life
from back them, I feel like I'm poking around in someone else's life.

So... my poetic persona is whoever whoever I am at the moment imagines
is doing the writing as well as the protagonist, whoever he's talking
to, and the person I imagine reading the damn thing.

What's funny is that I'm writing this in my pigpen identity to people
whose persona's I've pretty much fabricated from reading their words
on this screen.

Though, considering my next-door neighbors, you people are MUCH more real.

Hmm, does reading people's poetry give you a more accurate picture of the
person? Call me prejudiced, but I think it does.

Ray