I waited a long time before I decided to publish this review of 100 Sonnets. Honestly, I really hate to write negative reviews. But I felt like it was an honor issue. The poet sent the book expecting a review. He put out an expense in doing so – in giving away a free copy…
Category Archives: Poetic Forms
Why Narrative Poetry Is So Damn Hard To Write
I love narrative poems, but they’re hard to write. Anyone who thinks narrative poetry is easy to write has obviously never tried to write one. The reasons I think narrative poems are difficult are many, but in a nutshell: The struggle is in maintaining a balance between the narrative and the poetics Too much narrative…
How Are Epic Poetry And Long Narrative Verse Different?
Awhile back I wrote a series on epic poetry. I wanted to revisit the issue and offer some thoughts on the differences between epic poetry and long narrative verse. Some people may place them in the same category and I really don’t think we should. The above-mentioned series played fast and loose with the term…
Post-Literate Poetics And The Coming Epic
It’s been a busy three days. Political conventions, distractions of one sort or another, computer issues, etc. But you don’t want to hear about any of that. You came to read about the future of the epic. So let’s get on with it, shall we? The Epic Is Not Dead (Thanks Walt Whitman!) Epics are…
The Epic Future: 21st Century Narratives And Poetic History
I’m splitting this discussion of poetics into three blog posts. I like to make good on my promises so here’s the first part of my discussion on the future of the epic. I’ll start with its past. For the purpose of this discussion I’m breaking poetic history down into three periods: The pre-literate, the literate,…
How Many Types Of Poetry Are There?
I’d like to offer a great big thanks to Timothy Green, editor of Rattle, for getting me thinking on this. He commented on a former blog post about the nature of didacticism and I wanted to respond in a way that calls for more than a simple comment on a post. Here’s his comment: The…
Apposition Vs. Exposition (Or Who Writes The Rules?)
Yesterday I sicked my inner sicko (psycho?) on the appositives to see if I could get away with murder. Today I’m going to prosecute myself. Seriously, if I were to answer yesterday’s post with a rebuttal, I’d say there are three types of poetry where appositives are a positive. They are: Prose poetry Narrative verse…
Why Rhyme Is Back In
When I started writing poetry back in the 1980s you almost never saw rhyme in contemporary poetry. In fact, there was such a prejudice against it that the mere mention of rhyme would send most “serious” poets to file 13 to unload their lunch. God forbid a Postmodern poet should rhyme. But that has changed…
An Ode To Frederick
I just returned from Frederick, Maryland where my friend Gary Ciocco was the featured reader. The venue is run by a rather gregarious fellow by the name of Daniel Armstrong. He has a pretty diverse group of regulars that show up week after week and I haven’t seen them in months so it was a…
How Poets Innovate
Innovation is a poetic necessity. Poets who have stood the test of time were innovators within their schools, and many were innovators among the broader poetic community. From Homer, who took the poetic storytelling form from the oral tradition to the printed page, to New Formalism on the one end of the scale and Language…
