Book-Length Verse Narratives

Before the age of the novel, much of history and literature was written in narrative verse. With the resurgence of book-length poems, we return to our Homeric roots.

Before the age of the novel, much of world history and literature was written in the form of verse. Narratives such as The Iliad and The Odyssey in Europe and The Bhagavad-Gita in Asia are ready examples. (Narratives such as The Iliad and The Odyssey in Europe and The Bhagavad-Gita in Asia are ready examples of religion, biography and history as poetry. ) As hard as it seems for us to imagine now, the advent of prose was a revolutionary act. One of the reasons the Prose Edda, for instance, is so important to western culture is because it was written in this stunning new non-verse form. The same is often said for the Tale of Genji in Japan.

Even in the nineteenth century books of popular literature, if not history, were written in book-length lyric volumes. Pushkin’s Evgeny Onegin (1833) for instance, is still widely read. The 1860 novel-in-verse, Lucile, by Owen Meredith, however, was not so long-lived and is out of print now even though it was wildly popular for decades in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Many poets writing today are returning to the traditional story-telling form. Publishers, on the other hand, seem shy about announcing a book as a lyric narrative. Though it is often hard to tell from the title, cover, or back material, bookstores today are stocking more and more novels-in-verse and linked narrative collections.

For the next few weeks we will explore the role poetry can play in the telling of a good story.  Here are a few we will be examining:

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

An urban drama based on Greek Mythology.

Louise in Love by Mary Jo Bang

A romance based in Flapper-era America.

After the Lost War by Andrew Hudgins

A biography of Poet Sidney Lanier, and history of the post Civil War US.

Ultima Thule by Davis McCombs

Two stories -- one historical, one fiction -- set in Mammoth Caverns.

Fredy Neptune by Les Murray

Action-packed historical fiction of WWI through WWII.

The Descent of Alette by Alice Notley

An allegory using the Paris Metro as Underworld.

Kyrie by Ellen Bryant Voigt

Historical fiction based on the 1918 influenza pandemic.

Tamsen Donner:  A Woman’s Journey by Ruth Whitman

Historical fiction based on the Donner Party tragedy.

Notice how many times the word “fiction,” is used in the above descriptions.  This is done purposefully, because of the need to underscore an important distinction. After decades of confessional poetry being the dominant model, especially in American classrooms, many assume that all contemporary poetry is true – that what it records actually happened. Poetry has become confused with journaling. “So, how did you get into poetry?” a student asked recently.  “Did you feel depressed one day and pick up a pen?” 

Poetry used as personal confessional, however, is but one use of the genre. In the next few weeks we will be letting poetry out of the confines of the expected, and take it off-roading into the wild literary woods.

Think of an important prose biography, history, or novel.  How is the story served by being told in prose? How could the story be told through poetry?  Does the change in form change the story, and if so, how?

(This article first appeared in Suite 101)

The Poetry Workbook: Learn by Reading, Learn by Doing

It’s the complaint of many an editor, “this person just doesn’t read contemporary literature!”  A rejection slip goes out.  The poet may never know what sabotaged his submission to that publisher, so into another envelope goes the same set of poems, destined for another rejection. 

Informal experiments performed by disgruntled poets suggest that if John Donne or Elizabeth Barrett Browning submitted their work today it would never see print.  So too the work of those who write as if they are contemporaries of Donne or Browning.  As artists we must learn from our predecessors, yet use the tools we’ve gained in a new way.

For instance, one writing a sonnet today must make different choices than Shakespeare would.  Rules of rhyme, word order and word choice have changed from what they were even decades ago, as has what constitutes interesting subject matter. 

In this set of lessons we will use contemporary poetry to identify what today’s editors demand. Each lesson will feature a short exercise set at reinforcing what we have learned from the reading. The long term goal is to train the reader to read as a poet does – at first enjoying, then analyzing and finally absorbing a work. In this way the reader’s own poetry will grow and develop, and become part of that living body of work: Contemporary poetry today. 

Hello Friendly Reader,

Yes, it's true: some of my best friends are poetry editors. Let me tell you, they complain about their submission piles a lot.  What I hear most is, “wow, some of these people just don’t read contemporary poetry.” Rejection letters fly, and those unfortunate poets– who may be well versed in, say, the poetry of the 18^th century -- stare at their in-boxes in disbelief. 

Let me clarify: There is INESTIMABLE VALUE in being well versed in poetry of the 18^th century, or 12^th, or 6^th century BC. The work of poets who have no love for the history of their art appear frothy and soulless when it crosses an editor’s desk.  Even on the bleeding edge of modern poetry, the poet’s skill at writing a Sapphic or a sonnet will reveal itself. On the other hand, a poet who submits nothing but Donnesque odes to Poe-Killz Annual will smother in rejection slips.

Contemporary writers, even those working in traditional forms, approach them differently than did their predecessors. (Take a gander at A.E. Stallings' work and then the classic poets she follows.) Reading libraryfuls of poetry -- ancient and modern, in original languages as well as translation -- is the only way to absorb the tradition in a way that will deepen your writing.

In the following set of articles we will read the work of contemporary writers who use traditional forms in modern ways.  We will begin with the revival of the epic form or, in modern terms, the “book-length narrative poem.”