Point of View

CRAFT TERM

Nov 7

Point of view, in literature, is the vantage point from which a story is presented.

First person is the I/we perspective.
Second person is the you perspective.
Third person is the he/she/it/they perspective.

via Encyclopedia Britannica

Example

Example of a poem written in third person:
excerpt from "She Had Some Horses" by Joy Harjo

She had some horses.
She had horses who were bodies of sand.
She had horses who were maps drawn of blood.
She had horses who were skins of ocean water.
She had horses who were the blue air of sky.
She had horses who were fur and teeth.
She had horses who were clay and would break.
She had horses who were splintered red cliff.

Example of a poem written in first person:
excerpt from "Autobiography of My Hungers" by Eduardo C. Corral

In tenth grade, weeks after
my first kiss, my mother
said, “You’re looking thinner.”
That evening, I smuggled a cake
into my room.
I ate it with my hands,
licked buttercream off
my thumbs until I puked.

Prompt

Pick an existing poem and revise it into a different point of view. If the poem is written in the first person, what would happen if you rewrote it in the third person? What would change by changing the poem’s vantage point?

For poems revised into the first person, here are some questions to consider:

What can subjectivity do to serve the poem?
What changes when the poem is experienced through the speaker?
Do details align with their worldview?
If not, how would they change when filtered through the speaker’s eyes?

For poems revised into the third person, here are some questions to consider:

When references to the “I” are omitted, what is left?
How much of the poem was rooted in the speaker's confessions or subjectivity?
How can you convey these statements from the third person vantage point?
Do any concrete details lose or gain significance in the third person?
Many people find comfort in distance from the “I” when talking about difficult things. Do you feel distanced? Do any details pop up that you didn’t think to include when writing in the first person?

Resource written by:

Featured

Matthew Feinstein

is a neurodivergent poet from Tracy, California. He is currently pursuing an MFA at Randolph College. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in HAD, Heavy Feather Review, Drunk Monkeys, Rejection Letters, and elsewhere. He is the founding editor of Plum Recruit.