The Writer's Voice: Forging One's Own Language

Every writer has a unique voice. By voice, I mean what you say and how you say it. So often, we think that we must follow the standardized rules for writing. This can make the work generic. This is why using A.I. to create work is a mistake. The longer I write and the longer that I teach writing, I understand how important it is to enable a new writer to listen and observe their own tendencies, to note what is unique or new in their writing and to follow this thread.  

Every person has unique perceptions. Each has unique locations, observations, and experiences. This is true even inside the mind. Each has particular landscape, particular encounters and events that happen in the families, in work settings, in relationships and in communities. These perceptions can be explored and developed into the "writer's voice." Partly, it comes about by following one's intuition, one's fascinations, one's tendencies.  In fact, I think this is key to forging one's own voice. 

I found this interview,"Writing is 80% Looking," that speaks so well to the idea of craft and what works in poetry or writing.  I'm not impressed by the interviewer (I hate his commercialization) but I am impressed with Ocean Vuong. He is an amazing poet and writer, and he has some very intriguing insights about the process of creating new writing. He speaks about the writing workshop, and I love how he (later in the video) analyzes the history and evolution of poetry/ news/novels/literature. 

If you are interested, look at this video about the writing workshop, particularly starting at 1:45 through 8:00 minutes. 

https://youtu.be/kn4r4CmWmUw?si=KXGrq0FkMhniqfB9

Another writer who I have long admired is Jhumpa Lahiri. In this discussion published on Lit Hub,  Jhumpa Lahiri and Chiara Barzini discuss writing in another language and"the mother tongue."  Lahiri was Bengali-American and wrote novels in English. But early on, she fell in love with the Italian language. Eventually, she learned Italian, moved to Italy, and began to write in Italian. Now she has returned to the United States, and she has interesting insights into the writing voice, translation, and languages. To read the entire interview go to https://lithub.com/writing-in-the-interim-language-jhumpa-lahiri-and-chiara-barzini-in-conversation/

Jhumpa Lahiri: I’ll cite the French-Guadeloupéenne writer Maryse Condé who felt the conflicting expectations of writing in French and Créole and eventually said: “I write in Maryse Condé.” She liberated herself from the trap of either/or, and also, given that she is francophone, from the oppressive weight of a colonial language. Condé forged a French language of her own, a French she has interrogated, grappled with, and comes to identify with on her own terms. All writers must forge their own language and liberate themselves in this way. This notion of liberating ourselves from another strain of the binary—that which divides and defines what is native and what is foreign—lies behind what Proust says: that beautiful books are written in a sort of foreign language. Ever since I discovered James Joyce and Virginia Woolf I have been seeking my own language.

We can look at our own rough drafts to notice what is new, what is emerging, and embark on an exploration.  Writing is not just looking, but also a doing.  We bring in our curiosity, our languages (diction and lingo as well), and our eccentricities.  The writing voice is meant to be unique.   

Subtext Books: A Reading

I hope you can join us at Subtext Books in St. Paul, Minnesota on May 27th at 7 pm.  The Minnesota authors who contributed to the book, On An Inland Sea: Writing the Great Lakes will read excerpts of their work. 

A Celebration of Transient Worlds by U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze

Apr 20, 2026 07:15 PM. CST- or 5:15 PM PDT. Free to Attend

Join U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze and host Michael Wiegers as we celebrate the publication of Transient Worlds, Arthur Sze's official Laureate project! This virtual reading and conversation will take you inside the pages and purpose of this landmark collection. Receive a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Transient Worlds; travel the inspirational pathways of meaning between a source poem and its translations; and discover how reading and writing translation can be a new entrance into your own creative writing practice.

Register here for Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_IbWHQhffSCWlJA-T8yiIXQ

League of Minnesota Poets: Thawlight

The 2026 conference of the Minnesota League of Poets took place in Ely, Minnesota on April 10 & 11.  The theme is "Thawlight," a word invented by poet Amanda Bailey to signify the change from the winter cold that put our animals in hibernation and our trees on hold. The season is turning toward spring with melting of ice and snow, greening of fields, leaves emerging on the trees, and songbirds returning. It's like dawn, she said. A creative time.  

I hope my keynote address inspires poets to think of ways to tap into the power of changes, like the way a polliwog transforms into a frog or an egg hatches and the bird starts to fly.  I want to acknowledge and borrow the forces of change, the elements, and the mythic stories, folk tales, fairy tales, and creation stories. I want all of our imaginations and music to flourish.  Poetry plays in all the fields of art and thought, and it can change the world.  

Usual and Impossible

 

TIME’S BODY by Brenda Hillman

—in the middle of the beginning they woke you
from a long sleep;

you could see the edges of the world
being formed, the boundaries
space would make in its eagerness
to be included.

The problem time would have
in its need to be the main thing.

The source of life is not life
but rebellion toward meaning.
When you saw the workers were already busy,

that the list you’d been handed
was usual and impossible

And held it all, and thin
or most, your will
strong as a paper clip

you needed a location
from which to act on your assigned nature

so you chose time:
seed of light,
seed of torment—

About poetry, Hillman writes: 

It is impossible to put boundaries on your words, even if you make a poem. Each word is a maze. So, you are full of desire to make a memorable thing and have the form be very dictated by some way that it has to be. But the poem itself is going to undo that intention. It’s almost like you’re knitting a sweater and something is unraveling it on the other end. – Brenda Hillman