I don't know if this is a secret or a trick or just obvious, but every poem is a character. Even if three poems are all perfectly truthful, they paint three different pictures and each has its own character, its own voice. Creative nonfiction is a true story told in an original way, probably with tweaks and embellishments. The same goes even for the truest poem: it has a unique voice, one somehow unlike the voice in every other poem ever written. Each poem is a character.

Photography has a similar quality. A great photo, I often think, is one that allows (or better yet invites) you to imagine a scene and a place other than what was there (around the camera). It's a slice taken from the universe, but because it's removed and held at arm's length, the space outside the frame suggests all these other universes.

Do you see what I mean? Even the truest poem does the same thing. It suggests a character, and people, beings, other than the poet. My heart is attached to me, and I to my heart. But if you remove my heart, it is a heart, and its own thing, and could belong to anyone.

[the image from The Anthologist about fiction/nonfiction poetry not existing as categories]

This is a clipping I posted on my Instagram last year, but it's a thought that chases me around sometimes. Poems often have completely true admissions next to complete fabrications - that holds also for prose or film stories, but they use more space. In a poem, it's all jammed together, like on the DC Metro to the 2017 Women's March. You don't have time, maybe don't even have the leeway to distinguish.

One thing is certain: the poet thought of everything there, and if it's there, almost certainly felt it. In what context? It could have been any context, though. A sad or angry strain need not be the poet's angry or sad strain about that thing in reality. But everyone has felt sad, everyone has felt angry. The poet has put together this arrangement for effect.