Men and women
"It has to face the men of the time and to meet / The women of the time... It must / Be the finding of a satisfaction, and may / Be of a man skating, a woman dancing, a woman / Combing."
These are not specific people, but rather figures for the ordinary members of society. For the speaker of this poem, solipsism (absolute solitude within oneself) is no longer an option for the modern poet. Rather, the poet must go out into the world and meet people, and must write about them accurately and simply. In doing so, the poet can help encourage readers to find sympathy and community in each other, and can help their minds find satisfaction in simple actions and pleasures such as skating, dancing, and combing hair.
The actor
The "actor" appears as a metaphor for the role of poetry, which needs to whisper truths to its audiences "like an insatiable actor." Later, the metaphor is deepened and the actor takes on an additional role as a "metaphysician in the dark"—i.e., one who helps the mind uncover basic truths (metaphysics, or the nature of existence) in the dark world of modernity. The actor is also described as "twanging / An instrument," like a musician.
In all of these imagined roles, the actor is a personification of a good poem, one that can perform for its audiences and comfort them with clear meaning and emotion. Because it is personified, the poem could be the same as the poet: Stevens undoubtedly makes it hard to distinguish between the poem as a work of art and the poet as its creator.
The audience
Stevens mentions "an invisible audience" listening to the modern poem, or the "actor." This is a figure for the general public, anyone who might be reading poetry and seeking insight from it. The ideal result, according to Stevens, is that the audience listens "to itself," and in so doing their "emotions [become] one," and people are able to connect to each other on the level of their shared humanity.
