Not to beat a dead horse, but now as I read more and think more, I see how voice can be more complex than I originally suggested. As Paul pointed out, John Ashbury uses parallel registers. In Daffy Duck in Hollywood, do we accuse him of using inconsistent strategies of dealing with his material merely because he references La Celestina and Speedy Gonzalez in the same poem? A voice, like a personality, may be complex but not maladaptive. Aren’t the most interesting people complex, eclectic? This is relevant for the novelist as well, who unlike the poet in most cases, may have to conjure many compelling voices, not just the narrator’s or narrators’, but characters.
It’s so easy, isn’t it, to want to write “like” someone else because they impress you. But ultimately, I think that could only ever be as satisfying as being in a relationship with a person because they impress you… or think it’s expected. There is a unique lens of experiences and personality with which I must view the world, and only through that lens can I see the stories, images, truths that I need to see. The same is true for my characters. If you have compassion for your characters, I think, you notice they arrive with heads full of vocabulary and hearts full of need. And when you have the humility to set yourself aside, a siren goes off when you put foreign words in their mouths, or ill-fitting motives in their hearts.
Now, to tie this back to the Villanelle. If it’s hard enough to find your own voice, how do you squeeze this complex collection of vocabulary, attitude, style etc into rigid patterns of repetition and rhyme? Well, I am only a student. And if finding my own voice is the priority at this stage of my development, I think I can nudge a few conventions just a bit to make room my voice.
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