30 days of prompts: day 13
& tweets
Here’s what I have for you today:
The prompt
Tweets
Day 13: Prompt
Write a persona poem.
A persona poem is:
a poem in which the poet speaks through an assumed voice. Also known as a dramatic monologue, this form shares many characteristics with a theatrical monologue: an audience is implied; there is no dialogue; and the poet takes on the voice of a character, a fictional identity, or a persona. Because a dramatic monologue is by definition one person’s speech, it is offered without overt analysis or commentary, placing emphasis on subjective qualities that are left to the audience to interpret. (x)
A classic one
is Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” in which the poet takes on the voice of this psycho husband who keeps killing his wives. Very fun.
Another great poet to look at is Ai, who was known for her persona poems.
Here are some more examples:
Demeter Counts on One Hand What She Knows For Sure About Spring, Jennifer Richter
Self-Portrait as Kendrick Lamar, Laughing to the Bank, Ashanti Anderson
& here’s one of mine:
A quick warning:
I know I don’t need to go into this because y’all already know but, just as a reminder: there are certain dangers that come with taking on someone else’s voice. I knew a poet who wrote a (very graphic) poem in the voice of the victim of a widely-publicized rape. There are certain people’s voices that we don’t have the right to take on. It’s safer, most of the time, to stick with dead people or fictional characters, imo.1
Tweets:
See you tomorrow—
-DB
Though, a caveat: It makes me personally very uncomfortable when people take on voices of people who were murdered in the last decade. That’s just me but, I mean, come on.