all about me

Her poems were language selfies.

missing person

There was plenty of personality in the poems, but little that was truly personal.

many lives

Poet, your personal history is just an iteration of millions of others.

slow reveal

Even if a poet doesn’t tend to be autobiographical or confessional, inevitably some personal characteristics will be revealed in her/his choice of observations and in the style of writing.

no more me

We await the poems that will come after personal and family content are exhausted.

gift text

A short gift inscription handwritten inside the front of the book exceeded the literary merit of all the print that followed.

life stories

Many people want to write poetry only if they’re allowed to tell their life stories.

near sighted

It was all close-to-home writing.

stage over page

In almost all cases hearing a poet read in person will sway me more toward his/her work.

against self rule

Resist the tyranny of personal narrative.

inhabited lines

Left with the feeling that a person lives in those lines.

scenes from my life

Was that a book of poems or a verbal scrapbook of family vignettes?

eternal singer

Whenever I hear the personal I-lyric denigrated by this or that theoretical notion, my mind flashes on Sappho, and like Solon (the Wise) I think I’ll die happy.

selfish sin

The personal idiosyncrasies that creep into a work of art are not essential; in fact, the more we have to cope with these peculiarities, the less is it a question of art. What is essential in a work of art is that it should rise far above the realm of personal life and speak from the spirit and heart of the poet as man to the spirit and heart of mankind. The personal aspect is a limitation—and even a sin—in realm of art.

—Carl Gustav Jung, “The Poet”

weather report

There is a weather report in almost every folk poem. The sun is shining; it was snowing; the wind was blowing…The folk poet knows that it’s wise to immediately establish the connection between the personal and the cosmic.

—Charles Simic, The Monster Loves His Labyrinth: Notebooks (Ausable Press, 2008)

synecdoche

The personal and the local are always synecdoche for the universal.