iterations of I

The ‘I’ of the imagined me. The imagined me of the ‘I’. The me of the imagined ‘I’. The imagined ‘I’ of the me.

i is i

To use the term ‘speaker’ when talking about the ‘I’ in a poem offers a useful distancing from the poet—but even in a persona poem or dramatic monologue the personal ‘I’ pervades the poem.