A Poet and His/Her Poem
Most poets possess a sincere fondness for their poems. They have no compunction about claiming the importance of their life experience, their personal goals, dreams, and heartfelt struggles that inform their poems.
They may claim that their poems are their children, but it is important to keep in mind that children and their parents are not the same. Children may hold very different beliefs and attitudes from their parents. And poem’s speaker may profess very different attitudes from the poet who wrote that speaker into existence.
Speaking through Characters
Even though poets are close to their poems, they may not always place biographical information in their poems. Poets may not always reveal their exact beliefs in their poems. Like playwrights, poets usually create characters through which they speak in their poems.
No one would confuse Lorraine Hansberry with any of her characters in her play, A Raisin in the Sun. Yet, when Langston Hughes writes, “My old man is a white old man / And my old mother’s black,” readers may assume that Hughes had a white father and black mother. In fact, both of Hughes’ parents were black. Hughes is speaking through a created character, just as Lorraine Hansberry speaks through her created characters in her play.
“The speaker” is not necessarily “the poet”
When discussing a poem, the reader is always on more solid ground if s/he refers to the person vocalizing the words as “the speaker,” instead of “the poet.” A poet can give his character any ideas or beliefs that are necessary for the execution of the poem’s purpose.
In his poem, “Cross,” Langston Hughes explores the idea of how an individual of mixed race might feel. So he created a mixed race character and let him speak. Hughes, himself, cannot be testifying to how that person feels, because he does not actually have the experience himself. But he is perfectly capable of exploring the idea, the “what if” situation, that poets engage in quite often.
Exploration and Creativity
The poet, as well as the novelist and playwright, can explore feelings and thoughts and situations that they have not personally experienced. They can explore and dramatize beliefs that they do not necessarily hold. For this reason, it is always safer to assume that the poet is creating a character rather than merely testifying, that he is exploring ideas rather than merely elaborating his own beliefs.
Even though the poet may, in fact, be testifying and issuing his own beliefs, it is still more accurate and safer to assume that the poem is being spoken by a character, rather than by the poet.
