Understanding the Text

10 SPEAKER: WHOSE VOICE DO WE HEAR?

Poems are personal. The thoughts and feelings they express belong to a specific
person, and however general or universal their sentiments seem to be, poems come
to us as the expression of an individual human voice. That voice is often a voice of
the poet, but not always. Poets sometimes create characters just as writers of fic-
tion or drama do. And the speaker of a poem may express ideas or feelings very
different from the poet’s own.
Usually there is much more to a poem than the characterization of the speaker,
but often it is necessary first to identify the speaker and determine his or her char-
acter before we can appreciate what else goes on in the poem. And sometimes, in
looking for the speaker of the poem we discover the gist of the entire poem.

NARR ATIVE POEMS AND THEIR SPEAKERS

In the following narrative poem, the poet has created two speakers, each of whom
has a distinctive voice. The first speaker here acts as a narrator, setting the scene
and introducing the second speaker. As you read the poem, notice how your
impressions of “the lady in skunk” (line 2) are shaped by both her words and the
narrator’s.

X. J. KENNEDY
In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus One Day
To the tune of “The Old Orange Flute” or the tune of
“Sweet Betsy from Pike”

In a prominent bar in Secaucus1 one day

Rose a lady in skunk with a topheavy sway,
Raised a knobby red finger— all turned from their beer—
While with eyes bright as snowcrust she sang high and clear:
5 “Now who of you’d think from an eyeload of me
That I once was a lady as proud as could be?
Oh I’d never sit down by a tumbledown drunk
If it wasn’t, my dears, for the high cost of junk.
“All the gents used to swear that the white of my calf
10 Beat the down of a swan by a length and a half.
—-1
1. Small town on the Hackensack River in New Jersey, a few miles west of Manhattan. —0
—+1
735

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 736 CH. 10 | SPE A K ER: W HOSE VOICE DO W E HE A R?

In the kerchief of linen I caught to my nose

Ah, there never fell snot, but a little gold rose.
“I had seven gold teeth and a toothpick of gold.
My Virginia cheroot was a leaf of it rolled
15 And I’d light it each time with a thousand in cash—
Why the bums used to fight if I flicked them an ash.
“Once the toast of the Biltmore,2 the belle of the Taft,
I would drink bottle beer at the Drake, never draft,
And dine at the Astor on Salisbury steak
20 With a clean tablecloth for each bite I did take.
“In a car like the Roxy3 I’d roll to the track,
A steel-guitar trio, a bar in the back,
And the wheels made no noise, they turned over so fast,
Still it took you ten minutes to see me go past.
25 “When the horses bowed down to me that I might choose,
I bet on them all, for I hated to lose.
Now I’m saddled each night for my butter and eggs
And the broken threads race down the backs of my legs.
“Let you hold in mind, girls, that your beauty must pass
30 Like a lovely white clover that rusts with its grass.
Keep your bottoms off barstools and marry you young
Or be left— an old barrel with many a bung.
“For when time takes you out for a spin in his car
You’ll be hard-pressed to stop him from going too far
35 And be left by the roadside, for all your good deeds,
Two toadstools for tits and a face full of weeds.”
All the house raised a cheer, but the man at the bar
Made a phonecall and up pulled a red patrol car
And she blew us a kiss as they copped her away
40 From that prominent bar in Secaucus, N.J.
1961

We learn about the singer in this poem primarily through her own words,
although we may not believe everything she tells us about her past. From her intro-
duction in the first stanza we get some general notion of her appearance and condi-
tion, but it is she who tells us that she is a junkie (line 8) and a prostitute (lines 27,
32) and that her face and figure have seen better days (lines 32, 36). That informa-
tion could make her a sad case, and the poem might lament her state or encourage
us to lament it, but instead she presents herself in a light, friendly, and theatrical
way. The comedy is bittersweet, perhaps, but she is allowed to present herself,
through her own words and attitudes, as a likable character—someone who has

2. Like the Taft, Drake, and Astor, a once-fashionable New York hotel.
-1— 3. Luxurious old New York theater and movie house, the site of many “world premieres” in the heyday
0— of Hollywood.
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 ROBERT BROW NING Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 737

survived life’s disappointments and retained her dignity. The self-portrait accumu-
lates almost completely through how she talks about herself, and the poet develops
our attitude toward her by allowing her to recount her story herself, in her own
words— or rather in words he has chosen for her.

SPEAKERS IN THE DR AMATIC MONOLOGUE

Like all dramatic monologues, the following poem has no narrator at all. Rather,
it consists entirely of the words of a single, fictional speaker in a specific time,
place, and dramatic situation, very like a character in a play.

ROBERT BROWNING
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister
Gr-r-r—there go, my heart’s abhorrence!
Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
God’s blood, would not mine kill you!
5 What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?
Oh, that rose has prior claims—
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
Hell dry you up with its flames!
At the meal we sit together:
10 Salve tibi!4 I must hear
Wise talk of the kind of weather,
Sort of season, time of year:
Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely
Dare we hope oak-galls,5 I doubt:
15 What’s the Latin name for “parsley”?
What’s the Greek name for Swine’s Snout?
Whew! We’ll have our platter burnished,
Laid with care on our own shelf!
With a fire-new spoon we’re furnished,
20 And a goblet for ourself,
Rinsed like something sacrificial
Ere ’tis fit to touch our chaps6 —
Marked with L. for our initial!
(He-he! There his lily snaps!)
25 Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores
—Squats outside the Convent bank
With Sanchicha, telling stories,
Steeping tresses in the tank,
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,

4. Hail to thee (Latin). Italics usually indicate the words of Brother Lawrence here mockingly repro- —-1
duced by the speaker. 5. Abnormal growth on oak trees, used for tanning. 6. Jaws. —0
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 738 CH. 10 | SPE A K ER: W HOSE VOICE DO W E HE A R?

30 — Can’t I see his dead eye glow,

Bright as ’twere a Barbary corsair’s?7
(That is, if he’d let it show!)
When he finishes refection,
Knife and fork he never lays
35 Cross-wise, to my recollection,
As do I, in Jesu’s praise.
I the Trinity illustrate,
Drinking watered orange-pulp—
In three sips the Arian8 frustrate;
40 —While he drains his at one gulp.
Oh, those melons? If he’s able
We’re to have a feast! so nice!
One goes to the Abbot’s table,
All of us get each a slice.
45 How go on your flowers? None double?
Not one fruit-sort can you spy?
Strange!—And I, too, at such trouble,
—Keep them close-nipped on the sly!
There’s a great text in Galatians,
50 Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine distinct damnations,9
One sure, if another fails:
If I trip him just a-dying,
Sure of heaven as sure can be,
55 Spin him round and send him flying
Off to hell, a Manichee?1
Or, my scrofulous French novel
On gray paper with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel
60 Hand and foot in Belial’s gripe.2
If I double down its pages
At the woeful sixteenth print,
When he gathers his greengages,
Ope a sieve and slip it in’t?
65 Or, there’s Satan!— one might venture
Pledge one’s soul to him, yet leave
Such a flaw in the indenture
—As he’d miss till, past retrieve,
Blasted lay that rose-acacia
70 We’re so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine . . . 3

7. African pirate’s. 8. Heretical sect that denied the Trinity.

9. Galatians 5.15–23 provides a long list of possible offenses, though they do not add up to twenty-nine.
1. Heretic. According to the Manichean heresy, the world was divided into the forces of good and evil,
-1— each equally powerful. 2. That is, in the dev il’s clutches.
0— 3. Possibly the beginning of an incantation or curse.
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 SPE A K ER: W HOSE VOICE DO W E HE A R? 739

’St, there’s Vespers! Plena gratiâ

Ave, Virgo.4 Gr-r-r—you swine!
1842

Not many poems begin with a growl, and this harsh sound turns out to be fair
warning that we are about to meet a real beast, even though he is in the clothing
of a religious man. In line 1 he shows himself to hold a most uncharitable attitude
toward his fellow monk, Brother Lawrence, and by line 4 he has uttered two pro-
fanities and admitted his intense feelings of hatred and vengefulness. His ranting
and roaring is full of exclamation points (four in the first stanza!), and he reveals
his own personality and character when he imagines curses and unflattering nick-
names for Brother Lawrence or plots malicious jokes on him. By the end, we have
accumulated no knowledge of Brother Lawrence that makes him seem a fit target
for such rage (except that he is pious, dutiful, and pleasant—perhaps enough to
make this sort of speaker despise him), but we should have discovered much about
the speaker’s character and habits.
The speaker characterizes himself; the details accumulate into a fairly full por-
trait, even though here we do not have either a narrator’s description (as in Kenne-
dy’s In a Prominent Bar) or another speaker to give us perspective. Except for the
moments when the speaker mimics or parodies Brother Lawrence (usually in italic
type), we have only the speaker’s own words and thoughts. But that is enough; the
poet has controlled them so carefully that we know what he thinks of the speaker.
The whole poem has been about the speaker and his attitudes; the point has been to
characterize the speaker and develop in us a dislike of him and what he stands for.
In reading a poem like this aloud, we would want our voice to suggest all the
speaker’s unlikable features. We would also need to suggest, through tone of voice,
the author’s contemptuous mocking of them, and we would want, like an actor, to
create strong disapproval in the hearer. The poem’s words (the ones the author has
given to the speaker) clearly imply those attitudes, and we would want our voice to
express them.

THE LYRIC AND ITS SPEAKER

With narrative poems and dramatic monologues, we are usually in no danger of
mistaking the speaker for the poet. Lyrics may present more of a challenge. When
there is a pointed discrepancy between the speaker of a lyric and what we know of
the poet—when the speaker is a woman, for example, and the poet is a man—we
know we have a fictional speaker to contend with and that the point (or at least
one point) of the poem is to observe the characterization carefully.
Sometimes even in lyrics poets “borrow” a character from history and ask
readers to factor in historical facts and contexts. In the following poem, for
example, the Canadian poet Margaret Atwood draws heavily on facts and tradi-
tions about a nineteenth-century émigré from Scotland to Canada. The poem is
a lyric spoken in the fi rst person, but its speaker is a fictional character based on
a real woman.
The poem comes from a volume called The Journals of Susanna Moodie: Poems
by Margaret Atwood (1970). A frontier pioneer, Moodie (1803– 84) herself wrote two
books about Canada, Roughing It in the Bush and Life in the Clearings, and Atwood
—-1
4. Opening words of the Ave Maria, here reversed: “Full of grace, Hail, Virgin” (Latin). —0
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 740 CH. 10 | SPE A K ER: W HOSE VOICE DO W E HE A R?

found their observations rather stark and disorganized. She wrote her Susanna
Moodie poems to refocus the “character” and to reconstruct Moodie’s actual geo-
graphical exploration and self-discovery. To fully understand these thoughts and
meditations, then, we need to know something of the history behind them. Yet even
without such knowledge, we can appreciate the poem’s powerful evocation of the
speaker’s situation and feelings.

MARGARET ATWOOD
Death of a Young Son by Drowning
He, who navigated with success
the dangerous river of his own birth
once more set forth
on a voyage of discovery
5 into the land I floated on
but could not touch to claim.
His feet slid on the bank,
the currents took him;
he swirled with ice and trees in the swollen water
10 and plunged into distant regions,
his head a bathysphere;5
through his eyes’ thin glass bubbles
he looked out, reckless adventurer
on a landscape stranger than Uranus
15 we have all been to and some remember.
There was an accident; the air locked,
he was hung in the river like a heart.
They retrieved the swamped body,
cairn of my plans and future charts,
20 with poles and hooks
from among the nudging logs.
It was spring, the sun kept shining, the new grass
leapt to solidity;
my hands glistened with details.
25 After the long trip I was tired of waves.
My foot hit rock. The dreamed sails
collapsed, ragged.
I planted him in this country
like a flag.
1970

-1—
0— 5. Manned spherical chamber for deep-sea observation.
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 SPE A K ER: W HOSE VOICE DO W E HE A R? 741

Even when poets present themselves as if they were speaking directly to us in

their own voices, their poems present only a partial portrait, something considerably
less than the full personality and character of the poet. Though there is not an
obviously created character— someone with distinct characteristics that are dif-
ferent from those of the poet— strategies of characterization are used to present
the person speaking in one way and not another. As a result, you should still
differentiate between the speaker and the poet.

AUTHORS ON THEIR CR AF T
BILLY CO LLIN S AN D S HARO N O L DS O N
“ FIN DIN G YO U R OWN VOICE”
From “A Brisk Walk: An Interview with Billy Collins” (2006)*
[. . . T]here’s this pet phrase about writing that is bandied around [. . .] “fi nd-
ing your own voice as a poet,” which I suppose means that you come out from
under the direct influence of other poets and have perhaps found a way to
combine those influences so that it appears to be your own voice. But I think
you could also put it a different way. You, quote, fi nd your voice, unquote,
when you are able to invent this one character who resembles you, obviously,
and probably is more like you than anyone else on earth, but is not the equiva-
lent to you.
It is like a fictional character in that it has a very distinctive voice, a voice that
seems to be able to accommodate and express an attitude that you are comfort-
able staying with but an attitude that is flexible enough to cover a number of
situations.

• • •

From “Olds’ Worlds” (2008)**

[. . . O]nce a poem is written, and [. . .] it’s rewritten, and maybe published, and
I’m in front of people, reading it aloud—I’m not too embarrassed by that [. . .] It
doesn’t feel personal. It feels like art— a made thing—the “I” in it not myself
anymore, but, I’d hope, some pronoun that a reader or hearer could slip into. But
how much can a poem reflect or embody a life anyhow? You can want to come
close, but it’s so profoundly different—the actual body, the flesh, the mortal life.

*“A Brisk Walk: An Interview with Billy Collins.” Interview by Joel Whitney. Guernica, 14 June
2006, www.guernicamag.com /interviews/a _ brisk _walk /.
**“Olds’ Worlds.” Interview by Marianne Macdonald. The Guardian, 26 July 2008, www
.the guardian.com / books/2008/jul /26/poetry.

Although the poet is probably writing about a personal, actual experience in

the following poem, he is also making a character of himself— that is, character-
izing himself in a certain way, emphasizing some parts of himself and not others. —-1
We can call this character a persona. —0
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 742 CH. 10 | SPE A K ER: W HOSE VOICE DO W E HE A R?

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways
She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,6
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:
5 A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
—Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
She lived unknown, and few could know
10 When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!
1800

Did Lucy actually live? Was she a friend of the poet? We don’t know; the poem
doesn’t tell us, and even biographers of Wordsworth are unsure. What we do know
is that Wordsworth was able to represent grief very powerfully. Whether the speaker
is the historical Wordsworth or not, that speaker is a major focus of the poem, and
it is his feelings that the poem isolates and expresses. We need to recognize some
characteristics of the speaker and be sensitive to his feelings for the poem to work.

Analyzing Speakers: An Exercise

In the following poem, we do not get a full sense of the speaker until well into
the poem. As you read, try to imagine the tone of voice you think this person
would use. Exactly when do you begin to know what she sounds like?

DOROTHY PARKER
A Certain Lady
Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head,
And drink your rushing words with eager lips,
And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red,
And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips.
5 When you rehearse your list of loves to me,
Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed.
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see
The thousand little deaths my heart has died.
And you believe, so well I know my part,
-1—
0— 6. Small stream in the Lake District in northern England, near where Wordsworth lived.
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 WA LT W HITM A N [I celebrate myself, and sing myself ] 743

10 That I am gay as morning, light as snow,

And all the straining things within my heart
You’ll never know.
Oh, I can laugh and listen, when we meet,
And you bring tales of fresh adventurings—
15 Of ladies delicately indiscreet,
Of lingering hands, and gently whispered things.
And you are pleased with me, and strive anew
To sing me sagas of your late delights.
Thus do you want me—marveling, gay, and true—
20 Nor do you see my staring eyes of nights.
And when, in search of novelty, you stray,
Oh, I can kiss you blithely as you go . . .
And what goes on, my love, while you’re away,
You’ll never know.
1937

To whom does the speaker seem to be talking? What sort of person is he?
How do you feel about him? Which habits and attitudes of his do you like least?
How soon can you tell that the speaker is not altogether happy about his conver-
sation and conduct? In what tone of voice would you read the first twenty-two
lines aloud? What attitude would you try to express toward the person spoken to?
What tone would you use for the last two lines? How would you describe the
speaker’s personality? What aspects of her behavior are most crucial to the poem’s
effect?

• • •

The poems we have looked at in this chapter— and those that follow— all suggest
the value of beginning the reading of any poem with three simple questions: Who is
speaking? What do we know about him or her? What kind of person is she or he?
Putting together the evidence that the poem presents in answer to such questions
can often take us a long way into the poem. For some poems, such questions won’t
help a great deal because the speaking voice is too indistinct or the character too
scantily presented. But starting with such questions will often lead you toward the
central experience the poem offers.

POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY

WALT WHITMAN
[I celebrate myself, and sing myself ]
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul, —-1
5 I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. —0
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 744 CH. 10 | SPE A K ER: W HOSE VOICE DO W E HE A R?

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents
the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
10 Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
1855, 1881

• What is characteristically American about the speaker of this poem?

LANGSTON HUGHES
Ballad of the Landlord
Landlord, landlord,
My roof has sprung a leak.
Don’t you ’member I told you about it
Way last week?
5 Landlord, landlord,
These steps is broken down.
When you come up yourself
It’s a wonder you don’t fall down.
Ten Bucks you say I owe you?
10 Ten Bucks you say is due?
Well, that’s Ten Bucks more’n I’ll pay you
Till you fi x this house up new.
What? You gonna get eviction orders?
You gonna cut off my heat?
15 You gonna take my furniture and
Throw it in the street?
Um-huh! You talking high and mighty.
Talk on—till you get through.
You ain’t gonna be able to say a word
20 If I land my fist on you.
Police! Police!
Come and get this man!
He’s trying to ruin the government
And overturn the land!
25 Copper’s whistle!
Patrol bell!
Arrest.
Precinct Station.
-1— Iron cell.
0— 30 Headlines in press:
+1—

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 GW ENDOLY N BROOKS We Real Cool 745

MAN THREATENS LANDLORD

TENANT HELD NO BAIL
JUDGE GIVES NEGRO 90 DAYS IN COUNTY JAIL.
1940

• Who are the various speakers in this poem? What is the effect of Hughes’s
choice not to give us all the words of all the speakers?

E . E . CUMMINGS
[next to of course god america i]
“next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn’s early my
country ’tis of centuries come and go
5 and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
10 iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?”
He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water
1926

• Except for the last line, this poem works much like a dramatic monologue.
What can you discern about the situation in which the quoted words are spo-
ken? about the speaker and his or her audience? about the poem’s attitude
toward the speaker?

GWENDOLYN BROOKS
We Real Cool
The Pool Players,
Seven at the Golden Shovel.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
5 Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
10 Die soon. —-1
1950 —0
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 746 CH. 10 | SPE A K ER: W HOSE VOICE DO W E HE A R?

• Who are “we” in this poem? Do you think that the speaker and the poet share
the same idea of what is “cool”?

AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK

GWEN D O LY N B RO O K S ( 1917–20 0 0)
From “An Interview with Gwendolyn
Brooks” (1970)*
Q[UESTION:] Are your characters literally true to your experi-
ence or do you set out to change experience?
A[NSWER:] Some of them are, are invented, some of them are
very real people.
• • •

Q[UESTION:] How about the seven pool players in the poem “We Real Cool”?
A[NSWER:] They have no pretensions to any glamor. They are supposedly drop-
outs, or at least they’re in the poolroom when they should possibly be in school,
since they’re probably young enough, or at least those I saw were when I looked in
a poolroom [. . .]. First of all, let me tell you how that’s supposed to be said,
because there’s a reason why I set it out as I did. These are people who are essen-
tially saying, “Kilroy is here. We are.” But they’re a little uncertain of the strength
of their identity. [. . .]
The “We”—you’re supposed to stop after the “We” and think about their valid-
ity, and of course there’s no way for you to tell whether it should be said softly or
not, I suppose, but I say it rather softly because I want to represent their basic
uncertainty, which they don’t bother to question every day, of course.
Q[UESTION:] Are you saying that the form of this poem, then, was determined by
the colloquial rhythm you were trying to catch?
A[NSWER:] No, determined by my feeling about these boys, these young men.

*“An Interview with Gwendolyn Brooks.” Interview by George Stavros. Contemporary Literature,
vol. 11, no. 1, Winter 1970, pp. 1–20. JSTOR, www.jstor.org /stable /1207502.

LUCILLE CLIFTON
cream of wheat
sometimes at night
we stroll the market aisles
ben and jemima and me they
walk in front remembering this and that
5 i lag behind
-1— trying to remove my chefs cap
0—
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 SUGGESTIONS FOR W RITING 747

wondering about what ever pictured me

then left me personless
Rastus
10 i read in an old paper
i was called rastus
but no mother ever
gave that to her son toward dawn
we return to our shelves
15 our boxes ben and jemima and me
we pose and smile i simmer what
is my name
2008

• At what point and how did you begin to figure out just who the speaker of
this poem is? What is the effect of the shifts between plural and singular, “we”
and “I”?

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING

1. Several of the poems in this chapter create characters and imply situations, as in
drama. Write an essay in which you describe and analyze the main speaker of any
poem in this chapter.
2. Write an essay in which you compare the speakers in any two poems in this chapter.
What kinds of self-image do they have? In each poem, what is the implied distance
between the speaker and the poet?
3. Choose any of the poems in this or the previous chapter and write an essay about the
way a poet can create irony and humor through the use of a speaker who is clearly
distinct from the poet himself or herself.
4. Write a poem, short story, or personal essay in which the speaker or narrator is a char-
acter mentioned by a speaker in any of the poems in this chapter—for example, some-
one who hears the song sung in X. J. Kennedy’s In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus
One Day, the lover in Dorothy Parker’s A Certain Lady, or Ben and Jemima in
Cream of Wheat. How might the same situation, as well as the main speaker of
these poems, look and sound different when viewed from another speaker’s point of
view and described in another speaker’s voice?

—-1
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