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Narrative
poetry |
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Narrative poetry was a precursor to the modern novel
and many of the world's great (and still popular) stories
are written in verse: Iliad,
Aeneid,
Beowulf,
The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Gawain
and the Green Knight, The
Divine Comedy, The
Canterbury Tales, The
Fairie Queen, The
Rape of Lock, Don
Juan, The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Browning's
Dramatic Lyrics, Idylls
of the King, Hiawatha
— to mention only European examples. Narrative poetry
presents a story or account of events, and must therefore
encompass the novel's requirements. |
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Rambling narratives |
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Stories
needn't be simple or linear.
Half the pleasure comes from digressions, subplots, observations
on life and a dozen other inconsequentialities. Narrative
poems allow their author to speak with borrowed voice and
viewpoint — useful
for dealing with painful or novel experiences — but,
more importantly, open up new techniques
to the poet. Plot,
dialogue,
conflict,
page-turning
suspense, characterisation,
setting, local colour, reader-grabbing
openings
and so forth: these are not simply requirements but a way
of vastly extending the territory and accomplishments of
a poem.
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Anti-narrative tradition |
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Isn't
story telling natural to humans? No, says the American
avant-garde.
Narratives
impose a structure on events, and are therefore repressive.
Poets like Bernadette
Mayer, Charles
Bernstein, Jack
Spicer, Shawn
Walker and Catherine
French therefore replace
characterisation and narrative techniques by free association,
mechanical
or random
selection devices,
stress on text
only, etc. Results are dada-like but sometimes beautiful.
Freedom is not the only aim, moreover: some avant-garde work
simply tries to represent the contemporary
world honestly,
without borrowed trappings. |
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Narrative poetry today |
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Narrative
poetry has enjoyed a modest revival in the last
twenty odd years. Contemporary narrative poetry can
also be found at: expansive
poetry and music online, skylonda,
christian
narrative poetry, polyphony,
doggrel.co.uk,
ceteris
paribus, double
take, POeTRY,
and Poems
from Boston and Cambridge. The literature on contemporary
American poetry is partisan, but see J.M. Conte's Unending
Design (1991), V.L. Shetley's After the Death of
Poetry (1993), and J. Holden's The Fate of American
Poetry (1991) for a discussion of the issues involved.
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