A persona poem is a poem written in the first person, in which a writer imagines she is an animal, an object, a famous person - anyone she is not. We will write in free verse.

The Greek word "persona" means mask. In dramatic poems that's exactly what the writer does, he or she dons a mask and writes from another person's point of view. Even in poems which use "I" as a narrator, writers often represent another person's thoughts or feelings. Persona poems allow you to stretch your style and allow you to attribute emotions and feelings from a less vulnerable perspective. Remember that the narrator guides your reader through the poem. Examples of writers who have written in this format include Robert Browning, Norman Dubie, Sylvia Plath, Ann Sexton and Rita Dove.

Questions to ask yourself when writing

• What is its world like?
• What might it see?
• What might it hear?
• What might it do? (Or a person do to it?)
• What does it know?
• What might it feel or think?

Closely entwined with the speaker of a poem is the poem's sense of place. The physical world with its sights, smells, and sounds should be more than a backdrop for your poetry. It should be specific, detailed, and central to the thrust of your poem. Your persona character must be shaped by the physical reality and culture of a specific place. Yeats said that a poet's words have "to be wedded to the natural figures of his or her native landscape."

Also, diction (the choice of words, the way words are strung together) becomes a vital element in persona poems. Make sure that your language is language that your character would have used, or at least will appear authentic to the reader. In other words don't write a dramatic monologue about Queen Elizabeth and intersperse slang by Madonna.

Remember to choose if possible, a critical moment in the historical figure's life. Also, use details: clothing, fashion, and objects of the time period.

Here's a simple example. These are the mummy's words from "The Mummy's Smile":

I still remember the sun on my bones.
I ate pomegranates and barley cakes.
I wore a necklace of purple stones.
And sometimes I saw a crocodile
Slither silently into the Nile.

This stanza focuses on sensory impressions, and all the details accurately describe things this mummy might have actually experienced when she was alive.

Click here to view a persona poem written by group member Laurie MacMillan.

Click here to view a persona poem by Celeste Thomas.