I'm so frequently disappointed by either deeply personal poetry, by imitations, or by poetry built upon historic incidents or characters. Most of these require no flight of imagination, merely technical competence, perhaps a touch of insight, a flair of language
In the Jan/Feb issue of Poets & Writers, I read Henry Stimpson's interview of Richard Wilbur, in which Wilbur purportedly said, "If you translate from an author who is rather unlike you and find the right English words for what his main character has to say, it will affect what you feel able to write in your own person. It will enlarge your voice somewhat and also make you capable of impersonating a broader range of persons in your own poetry."
Of this, I like best, "impersonating," because I seldom encounter poems where the poet takes the risk of INHABITING a person other than himself, ie., the normal risk of the writer of fiction or plays.
When we think about Wallace Stevens's "fictive music," we should consider the "fictive" as well as the music. Music applied to the personal, to literary or social history, or anything else already written doesn't take the "fictive" risk.
I hazard that we will write our best poetry when we enter the realm of impersonation, when we try to go elsewhere and to be someone else. Again and again I'm stunned by Frost's "A Servant to Servants" because he takes me inside a person I could never have met, and because I marvel how, if he had met her, he could have got inside her head and presented her as HERSELF.
Face it, most of us live pretty ordinary lives. People tell me that mine has been extraordinary, but I never FEEL that it has, certainly not different enough to write many good poems based on incidents from it. When I take to writing, I generally set out to be someone else, elsewhere. I'm curious to know if you feel that this is a common feeling among poets or merely a technique for a specific kind of poem, such as the "persona poem" or the "dramatic monologue."
Bob
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