To
the right side of First Person box is Second Person box. Under Second Person
box is a box containing Second Person pronouns; “you”, “your”, and “thou”.
The poem,
“It Is Hard Today” shown below contains these Second Person pronouns:
It Is Hard Today
(Second Person Persona Poem)
You search
for love and find, it is hard today
The grits
and pain are more than sand, for sure
Handful of
tricks, intermix to transfix
The mind,
they knock at every lover’s door
Their
keys, push bolts aside, with plenty screws
So guard
your soul, with the rose-thorn fence
Players of
harps, would find, no audience.
List of
emotional needs, don’t you show,
Hoping for
a suitor, whom you adore,
No way!
Gone like the wind for ever more.
Wear tight
the ace of hearts, on chest, not sleeves
Reverse
psychology tool, leads the way
Say yes,
when you mean no; this is called tact
Lying is
not the charm that holds love close.
What
effect does the second person pronouns “you” has on the audience? In the poem
the pronoun “you” has created a Second Person Persona narrative. The poet is no
longer the protagonist. The role has shifted to the audience. Second Person
Persona poems do create distance between poet and the audience. One gets the
impression that the poet does not want to speak to the audience directly. It
also conveys the notion of being too instructional thus making the audience
average, idealizing or topical. These impressions could be the reasons why most
poets tend to shy away from writing Second Persona poems. Nevertheless, the use
of Second Person “you” is fairly common in poetry, and since poets do not want
to wear the label of being “too aloof” the combination of the “you” and “I” is
increasingly seen in poems. An example of this is seen in the poems,
“Addiction” and "Easter" shown below.
Addiction
(Second Person Persona Poem in Trimeter quintain)
Day
and night I touch you
Can't
take my mind off you
I
sit and brood for you
When
my hands can't touch you
You
invade my mind, you.
I
want you, I need you
I
cannot resist you
Every
day I want you
My
feet crawl under you
All
the more, I want you.
My
fingers embrace you
My
lips can't resist you
I
drink the flow of you
Brewing
all over you
You
in me, me in you.
Soul
and body in you
Liking
the taste of you
Always
want more of you
In
the heat, I wait for you
All
day I'm craving you.
My
lips so cool on you
Sipping,
I savor you
I
am a slave for you
Poor
me thirsting for you
The
hot tea; and not you.
Easter
Three
months passed since the Asian tsunami;
And much
sadness still lingers in the air;
Easter has
landed, north, south, east and west,
With many
customs and pagan legends,
And here
am I in Aotearoa,
Walking in
reverse so my head tells me;
Marching
along toward April showers,
And
variable in so many ways:
Like the
Westerlies crossing the Tasman,
Or like
those northern Atlantic Trade Winds;
Akin to
Pesach, and the Risen Christ;
Redemption
is approached in heaps of ways.
During
Holy Week we watched the TV;
Beaming
images to ‘The Long White Cloud’;
Pope John
Paul Two with tracheotomy,
In the
Vatican at Saint Peter’s Square,
Gave an
Easter muted blessing on us.
Through
faith, we wished his silent voice would speak,
To us, his
waving hand signaled farewell.
The
fertility symbol of Easter,
We agree,
springs up a new successor;
In awe,
this mystic season of rebirth,
Where
bright colors of daffodils’ sunlight,
Our hope,
from a Savior who burst the tomb!
God’ Son,
our great gift from the Almighty...
His death,
resurrection, and ascension,
Reclaimed
for you and me our Paradise;
So we
pledge allegiance to the Risen;
Through
Him, no evil power can hold sway,
For we all
have found grace in God' great sight,
And His
Light has brightened our darkest spot;
So flying
kites cannot outpace our prayers.
In these two
types of poems, two points of view or voices have emerged; the poet and the
reader. The poet is no longer the sole character in the poem. In “Addition” and in “Easter” poet speaks but at
the same time lets readers become part of the conversation. The poetic performance is
shared.
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