One of the things I admire very much in a poet is his ability to peel himself away from "the speaker" both through action and through vocabulary, so as to become someone--speak for someone--he doesn't necessarily agree with on all points, or even like especially. Robert Browning does that a lot in highly dramatic poems, but it can be done in brief lyrics too, and gives the reader more "places to stand in" from which to llok at the poem, and more to think about and feel, too.
|