Voice poems explore the act of speaking and the identity carried through a particular way of using words. A speaker may seek to be heard, remember another person's sound, or question what can be expressed and what remains withheld.
Read the examples below and notice how vocabulary, rhythm, and attitude establish a voice. Who has room to speak, and who is silenced? A poem's speaker is not always the poet, so consider how the chosen voice shapes what the work reveals.
I am the voice on the other end.
The voice without a face, the voice that no one truly knows.
I have heard anger, confusion and relief from voices that are thousands of miles away.
For a few moments, I become part of their story, and the only people that exist are the 2 voices on the call.
I calm storms I did not create, and I carry patience for people running low on their own.
They hear me and I hear them.
For the time that the call last, we are not friends or lovers, we are 2 humans creating a brief connection.
I wonder how many lives I have impacted, how many people I have helped without ever being remembered. How many moments I have created without ever been seen.
I am the voice on the other end.
A voice that most will forget.
I am just a random voice passing through their day, and somehow, I make a difference, and that difference is my voice.
At midnight, the sea draws back its dark hem, exposing wet stones and mangrove roots. Each wave revises what I thought I understood. I search the shore for something certain, reading each mark as though it were meant for me. I wait for a sentence that will stay.
perhaps
I ask too much of the shore
to make its silence certain
words may hide my doubt
do I wait
for an answer or permission to be still
Tenderer, sweeter
Heart's heard upswelled
In birdsong, blossomy air
Whilst unbroke tis
Intoning what pleads
Love's "where are you?
Evening call, echoes through it
Shakes hell's abyss.
They sit, and They beg
with Dark and Gloomy eyes
Waiting...
Wondering...
As they let out their tears.
People Look
People Laugh
And People just walk away.
They Sit, and They Beg
with Dark and Gloomy eyes.
Music clears the cluttered mind,
Soothes the soul to dance in time.
The rhythm runs to something good,
Forward, back, till understood.
Up on my feet, I make a move,
Left foot over right follows suit.
Hips sway like melody is on its way,
A dance of my own design on display.
Not quite Broadway, our dance hall proved,
My buddies walk up, traumatized by the moves!
Laughing and poking, I turn in surprise,
And see all the humor light up in their eyes.
"Ah hell no, man!" they shout from behind,
"Moves like that are just burned into our minds!
We are only mortal men, not gods of swing,
But damn, you are no good at this thing!"
I smile and I blush, but I feel like I should,
Just moving my feet in the way that I could.
Ribbing and laughing, man, what a day,
I got caught dancin' my shift away.
In the veil of day
in the dead of night
hands are tightened upon young tender throats -
budding voices muted soon submerged.
Hold your tongue and know your place,
eyes on you forever watching.
Ominous clouds hover permanently overhead
while it is forbidden to shape thoughts.
Babes systematically silenced early on.
Their voice cursed for no good reason
beyond a perverse thirst for chauvinistic dominance.
Abuse is known to take many forms -
violence inflicted in a multitude of ways.
AP: 3rd place 2026
The voices aren't the same,
Yet measured on the same scale.
Some voices are velvety,
while others are dense.
Yet room was the source,
For storm to spawn.
Neither granted nor withheld,
Only the marks we wear.
It kept the voice in.
Once the voice is circled,
The heart’s eye becomes chained,
Refusing to speak.
Once the asymmetry knocks,
The voice already locked.
Some are sheltered,
Some are discarded,
Some are nurtured,
Some are afflicted,
Yet none can snap its chain.
The bound eye sees,
Only what was molded.
Some to be fearless;
Yet heart vulnerable.
Some to be weak;
Yet hold the strength.
The room,
Voice chased,
Was already fettered by the labels.
The voice in your head
There is a voice in your head that just wont go away
Dose that voice in your head tell you what to say
Can that voice in your head make you happy or sad
Will that voice in your head eventually drive you mad
How does that voice in your head know to speak
Is that voice in your head talking because you’re weak
Why is the voice in your head and who let it in
When did you first hear the voice, why did it begin
Who’s voice is in your head? Can you even tell
Where does it come from, heaven or it might be hell
We all hear a voice in our head. Speaking at any time.
Yours might talk differently to the one I have in mine
To the voice in your head, you beg and then you plead
The voice only laughs because on your mind It feeds
when the time comes when I’m old and at death’s door
I will be at rest and the voice will speak no more
Hi I’m an object a very small special object and my name… well …my name is NOT important!
I have been called many things.
Just know I am the most powerful object in the world because
You humans agreed that I’m important.
So important in fact that you humans practically worship me!
You humans do what ever you must to just to have possession of me.
Even if it means hurting and mistreating each other.
However, little do you realize that it is I who has possession over you. Your whole life existence revolves around me.
There is nowhere you can go
Nothing you can do
Nothing you can have
Without me.
Even-though I am not a living sentient being your validation and admiration of me brought me to life.
Don’t blame me for being me.
You humans made me what I am.
The human voice
is different
from every other sound
Imploring nature
and its Lord
to which our souls are bound
Each word expressed
to stand alone
alive inside the din
To free what noise
would only hide
— in echoes whispered thin
(Dreamsleep: September, 2026)
tide breath on my skin~
the sea lifts its silver voice,
teaching me to rest
A deep gloom
Is your room.
Yet there's none plusher curtained.
Willow-hung.
Heart of sighs
Touched now cries.
Old ripples, therein waking.
Through what's sung.
The Tenant
I gave the darkness horns so I could point at it.
I gave it a face that was not mine,
a throne outside the skull,
a name to curse when the night went wrong.
But look at where it sits:
inside the gold curve of my own head,
close enough to whisper,
one clawed hand cupped over the eye
that would have shown me everything.
It never crept in from outside.
I fed it here. I called it enemy
so I would never have to call it mine.
Every blame I handed off to hell
came back by morning, wearing my voice,
the same old flattery, the same old fear,
the same small pride that could not bear
to be the one who did it.
The eye keeps burning through its fingers.
It has always been open.
It only asks that I stop looking away.
So let the horns come off.
Let the mask slide down to a mirror.
The thing I feared was never at the gate.
It was the hand that wrote the story of the gate
and sat here all along, still holding the pen.
I am going whether in rain or heat,
and sometimes
my voice seems strange as if
it were alien to me,
I'm not certain whose voice is crying:
I cry to sustain me.
The poets cry for more.
In the end I cover both my eyes;
there in my hands as if at rest,
one may think I had place
upon to lay my head.
(Blackout of The Song Of The Beggar by Rainer Maria Rilke)
FANNING THE FLAMES
I was heavy
Weighed down
And buried by Judgment
Unintentional but hurtful just the same
Expectations of who I should be
As a daughter
As a Catholic
As a wife
As a colleague
By men
Fearful, yet domineering
Oh, the irony
That your insecurity has fueled my power
Fed the tiny coals that the women in my life
Have protected
Fanned them into flames
Fed the fire in my belly
Ignited my strength and resolve
Given birth to my voice
I am woman.
I liberate myself.
Hear me thunder!
And growl, and rage, and shout
I will no longer be judged, dismissed, hidden—
or silenced.
Voice Categories
Read wonderful voice poetry on the following sub-topics:
beautiful, christmas, crossed, death, easter, funeral, her, him, love, moon, romantic, shining, shooting, trek, twinkle, wars
and more.
Definition | What is Voice in Poetry?
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.