Narrative Poetry

ØTells a story

ØTime passes

ØOften relies less on rhythm, sound, and line breaks

ØRetains poetic ‘condensation’ of other forms

ØOften open-ended closure (more often than the short story)

Powerpoint #2: Imagism

ØImagists: A group of American and English poets whose poetic program was formulated about 1912 by Ezra Pound--in conjunction with fellow poets Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), Richard Aldington, and F.S. Flint--and was inspired by the critical views of T.E. Hulme, in revolt against the careless thinking and Romantic optimism he saw prevailing.

ØThe Imagists wrote succinct verse of dry clarity and hard outline in which an exact visual image made a total poetic statement. 

From Pound’s Imagist Manifesto

Ø1.      To use the language of common speech, but to employ the exact word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word.

Ø2.      We believe that the individuality of a poet may often be better expressed in free verse than in conventional forms. In poetry, a new cadence means a new idea.

Ø3.      Absolute freedom in the choice of subject.

Ø4.      To present an image. We are not a school of painters, but we believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. It is for this reason that we oppose the cosmic poet, who seems to us to shirk the real difficulties of his art.

Ø5.      To produce a poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite. 

 Ø6.      Concentration is of the very essence of poetry.

Ø7.   No ideas but in things. 

Digging    --Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground;
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

The Electric Daughter     -- Catherine Hunter

all winter in your daughter's bedroom 

the air thickens with ions 

she lies on the bed, 

brooding over long division, 

friendship and betrayal 

she strokes the cat 

fur crackles 

underneath her fingers

when you turn out the light 

she lifts her arms 

to reach your face, 

her nightgown shedding 

temporary stars 

each time she moves 

her kiss, 

the prick of a needle 

on your lip

you shake out the bedclothes 

and the green blanket ripples above her 

bright with phosphorescence in the dark room

you can't absorb what you see in that moment 

long legs, the sudden, unmistakable shape 

of a woman there on the sheet

all night you dream of angry honey bees 

swarming in a cloud outside your lighted window

meanwhile, the electric daughter 

sleepwalks 

through the house, gold sparks

falling from her hair 

like rain

everything she touches 

hurts her

from Lunar Wake, Turnstone Press (1994).

Powerpoint #1: Lyric Poetry

-the poet/persona ruminating about the world

-based on the “lyre” and the tradition of the bard; musical and laced with internal rhyme

-often centered on a semi-autobiographical “I”

-establishes strong & rich closure

-image-based, referential

-authoritative; the narrator revealing secrets of the world and humanity

-structured on image patterns and movement of thought

-usually 1/2 page to 1 1/2 page

-often emotionally driven

-often, especially as love poetry, addressed to a specific listener and implying a specific site of enunciation