This article is for: All of us!

Poets and poetry teachers (including me!) tend to use the term “voice” a lot.

And when we do, we use it as if everyone knows exactly what we mean.

But that may not be the case! And that’s hardly surprising: voice is in fact one of the hardest elements of poetry to define or pin down.

However, it’s also one of the most important elements of poetry—so having at least some understanding of it is a very good idea.

So that’s why in this article I’m going to try to tackle:

What Voice is in poetry, and to change it

This is a huge topic! Nevertheless, I will do my best to make it clear, without oversimplifying.

Why voice matters

First, let’s do an easy part: why voice is important.

To help with this, let’s think about how voice works in talk.

In talk, voice makes words mean

When we talk with someone, or even when we just listen to them (as on a podcast), the words they say are only part of what their talk means to us.

A great deal of the meaning of talk is give by elements that have to do with sound, like how fast they talk, or how they use intonation (going higher or lower in pitch, like music), or their accent, or their emotional tone.

All of these things add immensely to how we understand what they say, because they give us clues to things like:

The speaker’s personality
Their feelings
Their background and culture
How they view their connection with us, their partners in talk.

**In short, voice tells us about who is talking to us.**

A really great illustration of this is how we easily create pictures in our minds of people whom we’ve only ever heard, not seen—people on radio shows or podcasts. We have a precise image of how they look, and the kind of person they are, and that’s largely from how they say what they say.

In poetry, voice tells us about the “person” behind the poem

Voice in poetry is very similar. Although it contains a lot of complicated parts, that I’m going to start on in a minute, the idea behind it is the same as for talk:

Voice in poetry gives us a feel for who is speaking these words—and how they feel

Without voice, poetry would be some kind of abstract word game, unrelated to emotions, relationships, self-investigation, or what makes us human.

With voice—or voices—you can move a reader, and interest them in many subtle ways.

And if you know about the ways voice is created in poetry, you can play with them, and so learn to create a wider range of voices of your own—though this is perhaps a topic for another article, as I think this one’s going to be long enough!

Things that make voice

First, a caveat.

There are dozens of possible things that can make voice in any individual poem, and there isn’t even any agreement on what they are!

So the list I’m going to make is personal, and partial.

However, do not despair! Like most human beings, you already have a good intuitive idea of what makes “voice,” from your experience talking with people—so if in doubt, try to use that to clarify how one poem’s voice feels different from another.

I’m just trying to add some extra knowledge to what you probably already sense.

Diction: word choices

I said above that spoken voice is more about sound than words, but that wasn’t the whole story—I was simplifying a bit. It’s more the case that we tend to be more aware of the sounds of someone’s voice, precisely because we can hear them.

However, it’s also the case that the kinds of words we choose can tell others a lot about who we are and how we feel.

This applies especially to poetry on the page, where there isn’t a voice actually speaking to us, so we have to search harder to clues as to who we’re hearing. Word choices are one of those clues.

Formality of your words

Much of the time in English, we have a choice between more and less formal ways of saying the same meaning.

For example, we might call a time when we eat:

A repast or collation (very formal)
A meal (neutral)
A nosh-up (British slang, very casual)

Whether we choose formal or casual tells the reader something about how you feel and who you are.

More formal choices tend to suggest emotional distance from the subject, as well as a less friendly attitude toward the reader
More casual choices tend to indicate more directness of feeling and more openness.

So if you write the same poem using formal vocabulary, then switch it to casual language, you will definitely change its voice.

Registers (type of words)

Register is the idea that certain kinds of words tend to go together.

For example, a poem about illness might tend to use words from a medical register, to do with doctors, hospitals, medications, and so on.

As humans, we usually have a subset of registers that we’re expert in, like the language that goes with a certain sport, or cooking, or a form of work.

Therefore, the register you use can tell readers something about the kind of person who’s speaking—what they know, what they care about.

Additionally, switching registers can be an interesting way to suggest different voices or people speaking in a poem. We’ve seen this happen many times in the poems we’ve studied for Poetry Parlor.

Vocabulary of social/cultural groups and backgrounds

Some registers are also signals of “where we come from,” in cultural and social terms, as well as geographical.

So for example, Linton Kwesi Johnson used the vocabulary of Caribbean English extensively in his poems—making a voice that sounds utterly different from the white British poets who were his contemporaries.

Imagery (Metaphor, Simile, Personification)

I think of this one as related to diction, but instead of being about the kinds of word choices you make, it’s about your imaginative choices.

As always, there are several options here.

Some poets, like Robert Creely, use very little imagery. This may make their voice sound more plainspoken or down-to-earth—although other choices like Form or Syntax may counterbalance that!
For other poets, imagery is a central part of their poetry, and therefore of their voice too. Selima Hill’s use of highly surreal similes and metaphors is one of the things that makes her poetry very distinctive, and definitely a part of her voice. If you know her work, you can usually tell if a poem is by her, because the imagery (and simple, casual diction) sound like her. And that’s voice!

Most poets are somewhere between these two extremes—and of course, they may also vary their approaches from poem to poem.

But whether a poem’s imagery tends to be relatively plain, like Michael Longley’s, or somewhat whimsical, like Chen Chen’s, will always affect how we hear the voice of the poem’s speaker.

Putting words together to make meaning (Syntax)

This is another word-based element of voice that we may not notice so much in spoken language. But in poetry, it’s crucial.

Syntax means how you arrange words in sentences. There are some grammatical rules, of course, but you also have a great deal of freedom—especially in poetry, where rules are there to be broken!

In general terms, how the sentences of the poem direct the flow of meaning can affect the voice profoundly. Syntax is a VAST topic, but here are a few of the most straightforward ways changing syntax can change voice.

Sentence length

Imagine reading a poem. It is all short sentences. None has more than six words. They cover the whole page. But they never lengthen.

Now imagine reading a poem where the sentences flow, they luxuriate, they open and spread over the page like indolent sunbathers, they flow like fresh warm honey over the edge of the beekeeper’s pail, and they pour sweet sun into your hungry ears.

No doubt you noticed that the “feel” of those two paragraphs was quite different! The first is staccato; the second mellifluous and rolling.

Each of these approaches creates a different voice, and this will work in poems too.

The first voice might sound more urgent, perhaps anxious.
The second voice might sound more relaxed.

So, you can change voice strongly just by making the overall sentence pattern of a poem longer or shorter.

Sentence complexity

Although somewhat allied to length—it’s hard to make a very short sentence complex—complexity is also its own thing.

For example, try these two sentences for size:

The river was flat this morning, and the grey light leaked from behind the vague clouds, and the thin rain falling on it was the only variation.
The river, only last week so wild, was flat today, flat as poured and cooled steel, and the grey light, itself iron, only smoothed it more, except where the rain, nervous, tapped it when it dared.

Although both are long, the second one has a much more intricate construction. The first one is simpler, and its voice sounds fairly direct and “flat.” But in the second sentence, the various clauses, separated by all those commas, introduce new multiple sub-directions for the thought, and make a voice that perhaps we might call “fussy.”

So, changing complexity changes our idea of the “person” who gives us these words.

Sentence “flow”

Those two sentences I gave above are also a great example of how much voice can depend on how smoothly we let our words run on, and how much we stop and start them.

My first sentence above flows smoothly; my second sentence is staccato. It never really gets going before a comma comes along and breaks it up.

This, too, is a big factor in the different voices of these sentences.

Sentence completeness

Last one on sentences.

Sentences in poems can bend grammatical rules, as I said above.

So poets might use lots of fragments, that don’t form full meaning as a sentence. This might perhaps create a voice that sounds uncertain, or breathless, or rushed.

On the other hand, poets often also use run-on sentences, by not putting a period/full stop at the places where sentences end grammatically. This might create a voice that sounds enthusiastic, or overwhelmed, or full of passion.

Punctuation

Even though punctuation is often tied up with sentences, sometimes it can be an independent element of voice.

There are three basic strategies here:

Underuse—when punctuation is left out
Overuse—when. Too much. Is put in.
Innovative use—/when {punctuation} is /made to /do ^new^ things

Underuse is the oldest and most common form, and can create a rushing voice, as in French poet Apollinaire (who did it first)

Overuse can add a staccato or broken voice to parts of a poem.

Innovative use is more and more common now, for example the use of the slash mark / in the middle of lines. I find it makes mostly a jagged, unsettling kind of voice.

Sounds

Although made of words, of course poetry has sound-based elements, just like spoken voice. And these are also powerful parts of voice.

Rhythm

Rhythm is another VAST topic by itself, so I don’t propose to go into technicalities here. For now, I’ll just point out that all poems have rhythm because they all have stressed and unstressed syllables, which are what make up rhythm.

But of course there are many kinds of rhythm, each likely to produce a different voice.

A flat or prosaic rhythm may make a voice that seems jaded, or downbeat, or maybe just straightforward and honest.
A musical rhythm, like a traditional anapestic meter, might sound more full of emotion—perhaps woe, joy, or something else.

Every different rhythm we hear suggests a different emotional tone or attitude, and that of course is crucial for the voice we hear too.

Rhyme and other sound devices

Rhyme, alliteration, assonance, and consonance are all techniques based on the repetitions of various sounds.

The possible effects of sound on voice are too complex to sum up easily. I might say that the more assonance and consonance you use, the more beautiful and elegant your voice is likely to feel, and I might have a chance of being right.

But with rhyme and alliteration, the effects can be quite varied.

Full rhyme tends to sound musical and pleasing, but slant rhyme can sound dissonant or unsatisfying.
Alliterating explosive consonants like “p” or “t” can make a feeling of violence or passion, that alliterating softer consonants like “m” or “r” probably won’t.

What is definitely true though is that, as you change the sounds, the reader’s impression of the voice changes too—just as it does in talk.

Structure and form

Beside words and sounds, page-based poetry of course also has its shape on the page as another vital aspect—and naturally, this can affect voice too!

Lines and line breaks

I’ve created a few articles about how short lines and long lines do very different things to meaning. They also, of course, can do the same for voice.

I am tempted, for example, to say that short lines might create a slower, more halting voice, while longer lines are more fluid.

However, much depends on how the lines and the sentences interact.

If for example your long lines are as full of commas and sub-clauses as my earlier example, then you can say goodbye to flow! An example of that might be C. K. Williams, who used long lines a lot, but usually filled them with mental debate going back-and-forth, creating a probing, uncertain voice.

And if your short lines each contain a neat grammatical unit, as often in Charles Simic, then the voice might sound definite, not halting.

Further, line breaks matter a lot.

Line breaks that snap apart bits of meaning we want to keep together, such as a noun and its adjective, probably make a rough, uneven sort of voice.

Whereas line breaks that always coincide with punctuation—called end-stopping—may create a definite, contained kind of voice, even a stiff one.

Layout

The page is wide, and some poets make full use of it. By scattering words and lines across the white space, we can also change the voice.

e. e. cummings made his voice more springy and playful by splitting phrases up and spreading them out, in ways the reader wouldn’t expect.
Denise Levertov sometimes used layout to create the impression of a mind processing thought on the page, making her voice more thoughtful and serious.
In contemporary poetry, the “scattered” effect tends to make a more disjointed voice that perhaps fits with the doubt and fragmentation prevalent among us.

Tone: overall feeling or attitude

We often talk about “tone of voice” in speech, so it make sense to consider it in poetry too.

And indeed, a lot of what I’ve covered already only makes full sense in the context of the overall tone of a poem.

As you’ve probably noticed, every technique I’ve covered can create multiple voices—so how can we tell which ones are more appropriate to the poem?

And an answer is, we work out the voice by getting a feel for the tone of the poem. Once we can tell if a poem is sad, or questioning, or ecstatic, then we can use that to tell what the voice is doing.

But the problem with that is, often we use the voice to work out the tone! So we need to know the voice first…

In practice though, we humans are used to dealing with this conundrum, and we do it expertly—without even noticing, in fact. Because we talk all the time, we’re very good at working out how words and voice interact to create emotional tone, and also the other way around, how overall tone changes our understanding of what’s said and how it’s said.

So we’ve ended up where we started: on voice, trust yourself

For reading voice intuitively, you are already an expert!

And I hope that my little (long?!) survey of the nitty-gritty of voice in poetry has given you some new knowledge.

Now I hope you’ll practice making deliberate changes to the voice(s) in your poems, using some of these tools. Play around and see how it all works!

Next Steps

Voice can seem like a minefield—but it’s actually quite simple to play with and learn, as this exercise shows.

Choose a poem of yours that you’re not happy with: ideally one where the ideas seem interesting but the delivery hasn’t taken off.
Think a little about what kind of voice you’ve used in the poem so far. What word or words would you use to describe it?
Is it a “poetic” voice? A “stiff” voice? Or “Conversational”? “Doubtful"?
What word would describe a voice that might work better?
E.g. if your voice is “stiff,” a better alternative might be “flowing.”
What are 2 or 3 elements of the poem’s voice you could change to make it sound like the new word?
E.g. You could make a “stiff” voice “flowing” by:
—lengthening sentences
—lengthening the lines
—using commas instead of periods/full stops sometimes
Rewrite the poem with the new voice!
Change the three elements you picked out, and see how the voice alters

What makes Voice in poetry?