Tucson poet Bonnie Wehle creates ‘persona’ poems, taking on the voices and characteristics of women from history. Her fascination with this style of poetry started after a trip to Mexico, when she began a long poem about artist Frida Kahlo. “That prompted me to seek out more information about her. I loved doing that so much I started researching other women. Art and art history are other areas of interest for me, so I was especially drawn to women artists.”
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Bonnie also writes lyrical, narrative, and confessional poetry, but what she calls “imaginary poetry” is where the persona poems flourish. “In all my writing, I hope to be surprised or find some new truth. My favorite thing is when the poem (or the muse) takes over and delivers an unexpected revelation. It’s magical when that happens.”
Her book A Certain Ache: Poems in Women’s Voices is a collection of persona poems in which she explores the passions and struggles of historical women from a feminist perspective. “I loved researching the women, trying to get into their heads and write in their voices. It was both challenging and exciting. These poems allowed me to express and examine my thoughts on women and their treatment throughout history — a subject I can’t let go of.” ‘Persona’ is derived from the Latin word for ‘mask.’ The poet is both inhabiting a character and revealing her own inner thoughts. “Persona poems are not just in the voice of the person being written about; the poet’s voice inevitably comes through as well.”
For Bonnie, poetry has a unique way of communicating ideas and feelings. “There is opportunity for telling a story obliquely, using metaphor, for instance, and the conciseness eliminates additional words or explanations that prose may require of the subject.” During her revision process, she concentrates on the craft of each poem. "I look carefully at word choice and the music the words create when strung together. I feel that while craft comes after content, being aware of it and using it can take the content to another level. In poetry, there’s always more to learn."
Bonnie’s involvement in poetry did not begin till she retired. “I was late coming to poetry, and probably largely because my college experience with it was so intimidating I was sure, for most of my life, that I would never understand it!” She discovered the work of Marie Howe, Gregory Orr and Ada Limón, whose poems are accessible yet moving. She studied with Laure-Anne Bosselaar, has taken many workshops, attended poetry festivals, and now participates in local critique groups, all of which have helped her grow as a writer.
In addition to poetry, Bonnie is an accomplished ceramic artist. “Pottery and poetry are both creative outlets for me, but from different sources — expressing what’s inside either with the body or with the mind.” But they have certain challenges in common as well. “Sitting in front of a blank page is much the same as holding an amorphous lump of clay in my hand. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m going to make until I begin to shape it, and sometimes I don’t know what I’m going to say until I begin to write it.”
Bonnie’s interest in poetry extends to her volunteer work as a docent at the University of Arizona Poetry Center in Tucson, where she facilitates monthly poetry discussions on well known poets. “I research and compile packets of their poems, which we then read and discuss together. The hope is that we all learn about poets and poetry together from each other.”
“To My Great-Granddaughters” is a persona poem in the voice of Eve, who cleverly expresses her thoughts and opinions about her biblical experiences. Bonnie shares that “The Pretender” helps explain her underlying attraction to writing persona poems. Her hope is that her poetry will touch others and open them to new insights and realizations. “When the reader gets to the end of one of my poems, I want them to say whoa. Then I know I’ve reached them in a significant way, given them a perspective they didn’t have before.”
For more info visit bonniewehle.com.
When he said, So, tell me about yourself,
I turned to make sure my shadow
was still attached, flat, colorless, vaguely
body shaped. Like a paper doll.
My skin seems to stretch more tidily
around the bones of others than it does my own.
My thoughts cradle better in someone else’s brain,
spring more easily from someone else’s mouth.
I prefer to write in someone else’s voice.
You may hear me from the next room
reciting lines assigned to the dead or distant,
searching for myself on random gravestones,
in portraits painted with raucous colors
I recognize from somewhere.
Through a crack in my wall
You can watch me cut dolls from cardboard,
Shut them in a drawer,
And double lock the door behind me.
I want to write to you of summer peaches
plums fresh off the branch
their lusciousness in my mouth.
Instead, I gnaw
on fruit from an apple tree in a garden
someone else once wrote about
trying to persuade me it was my own fault
the pestilence, pain, fighting, smiting.
The shame.
Trying to tell me how perfect it all was
the purring panthers, curly-coated ungulates
winged things of all sizes
and every sort of blooming vine,
until an asp slithered down and seduced me with lies.
Until angels, with clumsy wings, convinced me
I could fly, then let me fall,
and failed to tell me there were still snakes in the trees,
their tongues flicking with deceit.
And there they remain, my darlings.
Don’t be fooled,
you will find only their sloughed skin by the roadside.
Dee Cohen is a Prescott poet and photographer. deecohen@cox.net.
