Allen Ginsberg: “I was saying that the first thing to hear is the cadence or the rhythm. But then I was pointing out that the rhythm or cadence has to do with the emotion – with the breathing. The breathing has to do with the emotion. The emotion has to do with the situation. The situation has to do with the intelligible meaning…”
It's wrapped up with the way you speak which is deeply connected to breath.
My breath has always been impacted by asthma and, I expect, this could be deduced by examining the pacing, lineation, pauses— breath that I've baked into my poems.
We all have influences on how we speak and how we tell a story. This impacts what we bring to the page. I like to paraphrase James Longenbach who calls attention to how difficult it is to sound like yourself on the page and that this is a huge achievement once you get there.
This reminds me of the great Merwin poem: "The Long and the Short of it " I tried to copy and but it de-lineated it, so that defeated the point. Beautiful photo.
Sounding like oneself is good. So is sounding like someone else. Depending on the context. Sometimes poems seem to have their own sound, channeled from who knows where. I'd say the cave of the oracle, but that's a bit pretentious! A lot of non-psychotic people hear voices. Maybe the poet-voice in the head is one of them.