Poetry and the person: I, you, he, she, we, you, they

Poetry is an act of communication.   As with any act of communication, the choice of person makes a big difference to how the message comes across.  Think of a mother and child, and how the mother will sometimes say ‘how are we feeling?’ to the child, instead of ‘how are you?’, creating a sense of togetherness.  Now think of how a nurse often tries to do the same thing, and how it perhaps becomes patronising when extended to an adult, removing their independent agency.  The choice, the relationship, and the context, are important.  Here are a few ways  the first, second and third person can be used in poetry.

THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR

• THE ACTUAL ME – The poet can place themselves directly into the poem, for instance saying ‘I am sitting in a cafe’, when they are indeed sitting in a cafe.  This can start quite an intimate conversation with the reader, but equally can either shut the reader out, or make the poet hesitant to go into great detail, if they fear breaching anyone’s confidentiality, including their own.
• THE IMAGINED ME – The poet can write from the voice of a third party, for instance saying ‘I am flying over the mountain, playing the part of an imagined bird doing just that.  This can help the reader into imaginitive situations, and generate some innovative and thought-provoking language, since the poet now has to decide what voice to give to this third party.
• THE UNCERTAIN ME – The poet can also leave the reader uncertain who is talking in the poem, the actual or imagined me.  The consequent suspense can add an edge, and raise philosophical questions about the nature of the self.

THE SECOND PERSON SINGULAR

• THE GENERIC YOU – English sometimes uses ‘you’ to suggest a typical experience.  The poet might say ‘you get married when you’re young’, giving a sense of what typically happens in the community.  It can create a sense of friendly recognition, as in ‘don’t you find sometimes that…?’
• THE ADDRESSEE YOU – There is also a more direct ‘you’ sometimes used in love poems, or poems involving relationship.  ‘You came to me when I was low’, for example, quickly positions the speaker as addressing something relational.  The reader can position themselves as an observer, as the addressee, or even as the speaker.  It will depend in part on how the reader is using the poem – for instance, if they recite the poem to a lover, then they may be assuming mainly a speaker role; their lover, however, is expected to asume an addressee role.

THE THIRD PERSON SINGULAR

• THE DISGUISED ME – The poet can evade detection or blame in a poem by using the third person as a disguise.  A male poet can write ‘she knew how it would go that day’ in a personal poem, switching genders in order to create biographical distance.
• THE DECONTEXTUALIZED OTHER – The third person also helps to create a new fictional context, independent of assumptions.  While ‘I’ and ‘you’ are more immediately relational, ‘he’ or ‘she’ positions the reader as the hearer of a story.
• THE DISSOCIATING EFFECT – The third person can have the effect of removing both reader and writer from immediate engagement in the poem.  Imagine ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ reframed in the third person.  ‘He wondered if he could compare her to a summer’s day.’  Not so engaging.
• THE PALATABLE STORY – Sometimes, though, the third person can be used to make the offensive more palatable.  ‘You are ugly’ can be converted to ‘She knew she was ugly’, removing the relational confrontation, and making a more empathic and touching scenario.  Tough messages can be delivered this way.

FIRST PERSON PLURAL

• THE WORKING ALLIANCE – ‘We’ in a poem can daringly try to bring together the poet and the reader, but it can be an awkward alliance unless well-framed.
• THE RELATIONAL STORY – ‘We’ can also draw the reader quickly into a fictional relationship between the speaker and a third party.  If a poem starts with ‘We are bound together with wings, she and I’, it can generate an atmosphere of relational intrigue.
• THE GENERIC US – There is also a more generic ‘we’ which can refer to the community in general, including potentially the reader.  This can be played with.  For instance, a first line ‘We don’t like foreigners’ can startle and challenge the reader, making them feel temporarily implicated and destabilised.

SECOND PERSON PLURAL

• THE AMBIVALENT YOU – ‘You’ plural can be mistaken for the singular, and this can be used by a poet.  For example, ‘You set foot on the beach and look around’ could be the first line in a powerful poem about immigration by boat, and drift between singular and plural ‘you’ to illustrate the plight of a community of refugees, through a single imagined experience.
• THE DISTANT YOU – ‘You’ plural can be quite distancing, in the same way that addressing a crowd rather than an individual requires a different appreciation of distance and relationship.  To make it more intimate and strong, and offer relational depth, it may even need the kind of innovative cajoling and subtle argument used in rousing political speeches.  We might say: ‘You are my friends now, / as trees in a forest are friends; / all with our own roots, / entangled underneath’.

THIRD PERSON PLURAL

• THE DISGUISED US – ‘They’ can be used to create a (true or false) alliance between the poet and the reader.  ‘They are full of hate’ could be used, for instance, to generate a false sense of security in the reader, thinking the poet is not implicating them.  The poem can then go much further in elaborating the thought on a third party basis, delaying any suggestion that the reader might also be hateful.
• THE UNGENDERED HE/SHE – A modern use of ‘they’ is as a gender-neutral singular.  This has the disadvantage of being impersonal, but can be played with, for instance to defer gender identity until later in a poem.  It can seem a little clumsy though.

The above lists are not exhaustive, but are meant to be suggestive that the poet, when in control, can create some nice effects, and take readers, willingly or not, on an interesting journey, with skilful use of person. The main thing is that we have choices.

IRONY

All of the above is subject to irony.  A poem is necessarily ironic, unles the poet chooses to dampen that irony, either deliberately to narrow the point, or accidentally through clumsiness.  Therefore, if a skilled poet says ‘I’, it can be assumed that they are already playing with possibilities, and leaving it uncertain exactly who the ‘I’ is.  An experienced, subtle reader will understand this – that they are with the poet in a universal, living playground of words, and not listening to a lawyer-like, literal, unironic, categoric, contractual statement.

CONFIDENCE AND CONSENT

Skilled poetic technique also gains the reader’s confidence, and plays with consent.  Sometimes the poet will trick the reader into a perceptual illusion through the use of person, for instance by seeming to be talking about others, and then gently bringing things round to include the reader.  Humans can be too self-involved to notice the sleight of hand until it is too late; the poet has bypassed the reader’s defensiveness, and the reader is irreversibly tied in.  Beauty of language has a part to play.  The poet can engage the reader with a combination of attractive language and disguised person; disarming potential resistance to an emotional or philosophical suggestion being offered.

SKILL

Poetic clumsiness can unintentionally cause the reverse of this effect.  The reader can see the poet’s intention too early, and therefore dismiss anything further that the poet has to say in the poem.  In particular, if a poet’s voice is too typical, preachy or partial, the reader sees them coming, and switches off.  As timegoes on, a poet can learn to behave like a magician, using sleight of hand and other tools to engage and manage the reader, getting into their confidence without seeming arrogant.

SUBTLETY

A poet learns over time to be more subtle.  An unsubtle poet may feel so delighted that they have produced something that rhymes, or has form, that they forget to make interesting choices in communication.  They may write in the first person just because it is the first option that comes into their head.  They may feel it is enough to make their point, as a single, identifiable ‘I’, biographical and literal, within their own particular emotional and moral framework.  This can still work well, but sometimes a writer’s self-absorption can alienate, and the work may be felt by the reader to be unempathic or sermonising.

MATURITY

As poets develop, they can come to see a poem as an attempt to relate, to reach, to manage the perception of readers, rather than as an unfiltered, undisguised projection of their own immediate thoughts and feelings.  They may roll up their sleeves and start to undertake the extra work of finding their way deep into the mind of the reader.  To this end, innovative, poignant choice of person can make quite a difference.