... come to think of it, "clerk Kent" (in the old sense of clerk as a scholar or scribe - pronounced "clark") is not a bad nickname for KJ.

Clark Kent also managed more than one identity... kryptonite was his language poetry...

Kent J. tyalkin' about heteronyms.

I've noticed that puttin' on a mask & speaking through it is basic for fiction. (I'm writin' a novel in the voice of an old college roommate, and a short story in the voice of a goofy film-maker.) Not sure how it relates to poetry, though. Makes me nervous.

Kent, what's the connection between masking and remembering?

I mean perhaps the best way to remember the 60s, for example, is to play a role, take on a voice. Get into the part. Method Acting.

If, as John Latta suggested yesterday, writing under a pseudonym or fictive persona sometimes enables free (or freer) expression, then it seems possible that feeling & emotion in poetry might sometimes take authentic form through a "heteronym".

If, in addition, we grant that all language is an artificial construct, a kind of shorthand "dress-up" for an irreducible reality, then, paradoxically, the "truest" expression - what corresponds to the situation most closely - might be such a "fiction of a fiction".

Halloween is coming, oh boy (put on costume; get candy). Curious how a masking ritual precedes the feast-day celebrating community as a symbolic whole (All Souls, All Saints Day).