Comments on Third Person Persona Objective in Poetry

Let us look at the scenario where the poet couches the poetic imagery using third person pronouns such as those identified in the Flowchart below:

Picture this, poet writes poems and immediately persons reading the poems see the poet as
the character, but a poet does not always want to be the character taking in all the oxygen from the audience; that is why poets from time to time write about their thoughts in as third person personas so as not to be seen as always a First Person Persona character.  The Third Person Persona character embraced by poets allows them to get their audience to view the events in their poems in a more detached way by using such third person pronouns as “she”, “he’, “it”, “him”, “they”, and “them”. What is significant here is that there are various levels of cognitive understanding when poets choose to write in a third person narrative. These levels are:


Third Person Persona Objective

Third Person Persona Limited Omniscient
Third Person Persona Omniscient

Third Person Persona Objective asserts that the poet is not a character in the story, but rather a detached observer, telling only the stories action and dialogue knows only what is seen and heard, not what the character thinks or feels. Here is are two examples found in “Sea Eggs” and "Caught in the Net" shown below.

Sea Eggs

(Third Person Persona Objective, Ballad Meter)

Sea-eggs, sea-eggs, folks at the door,

So fresh from broken shell;

Mobile hawkers are shouting out;

From Oistin town they sell.
On turtle-grass and H²⁰,

Moana lays her eggs;

In star-like cases white as snow;

They stand on pointed legs.


Urchins’ tests range the coral reefs;

Zero tests come ashore,

Flattened and brown with plenty lines;

They write their tests no more.


The fishing moon when it appears;

White sea-eggs are real ripe;

So divers raid Moana’s bed;

Eight months they ‘R’ on strike;


They crate the eggs in grape leaf cones;

Tied neatly bound with string;

The empty shells they hide in sand;

Their roes no longer cling.


Moana’s bed is slow to spring,

So kina dies from stress;

Poha is sweet that dish on plate;

But eggs need nests to rest.


All these eggs now folks must protect

From poachers’ greedy hold;

They fry the eggs in scrambled sand;

Call in the beach patrol.




Caught in the Net

(Third Person Persona Objective in Iambic Trimeter)


They chatted all night long

Mornings and evenings too

They talked on telephone

Danced to calypso beat


For hours they watched the cam

Lovers in Cyber space

The place were they first met

In real time at Christmas


They met and hugged boldly

They laughed and they did dined

Slept in the pale moonlight

They woke up to the songs


Of birds on hibiscus

Gymnastics of monkeys

Stealing fruits caught their eyes

The untamed world they see


In nature's wonder land

They frolicked on the beach

They watched the moon, the stars

Watch rainbows and sunsets


They swam in clear waters

Of the Caribbean

And gathered cute seashells

Took  lots of pictures too


They took mini-bus rides

Into the countryside

And they did lots more things

Typical lovers do


From their honeymoon isle

They said their goodbyes

They mounted gangway of

An electronic bird


This bird was very huge

And with its wings outstretched

Up, up, way in the sky

To their Kentucky home