The Practice of Poetry by Robin Behn
Author:Robin Behn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-01-11T16:00:00+00:00
THE SHORT NARRATIVE POEM
Roland Flint
Write a poem, eleven to fifteen lines long, in which you tell a story.
Specifics: First of all, your poem must tell the story of some one incident, something that really happened, at a specific time and place; either to you or to someone you know; or, if not, it should be an incident you know enough about to imagine the rest. (I actually have no objection to its being completely fabricated, but you must make it a believable story.) Next, the lines may vary from nine to ten to eleven syllables, but must not all be nine or all ten or all eleven. In other words, it is to be a rough approximation of a blank-verse poem, but without iambic pentameter; it is a bit like a sonnet, but without rhyme. (In fact, you are not to try for rhyme or for iambic rhythm.)
Not an absolute requirement, but try not to have more than one line in four or five ending in a period; that is, you are to vary the structure and length of sentences and, obviously, the relation of sentence endings to line breaks. One mark of beginners writing in forms is that many of the lines end exactly where the sentence does, the worst case being that every sentence is only one line. Obviously it’s useful to ask yourself if this is an incident worth telling about, worthy of a poem, of possible interest to others. But don’t tell, in the poem, why it is interesting or what it meant; use all your space to tell what happened. Its meaning beyond itself (the theme?), your attitude, your feelings, your ideas about it—these must all be implied, not stated. Also, don’t worry, especially at first, about actively implying; just tell what happened, exactly as you remember (or imagine) it, and all of your most important feelings, prejudices, biases, convictions, will be implied—which is to say that the careful reader will be able to infer them.
Advisory: Why not start, after you have decided on the incident to relate, by writing it out as prose, with no concern for length or syllable counting. Do this to make clear to yourself what details exactly are essential for telling this story. When you have it as nearly complete in this form as you can make it, then cast it into lines in the required number that make the best reading sense and come as close as possible to the variable nine-, ten-, or eleven-syllable count model. If what you have written is much too long, then you must consider again what is essential to telling the story, revise accordingly; then go to work on the form. It may be easier than you expect, that is to say, you may find that only a little tinkering will bring it into compliance with the simple technical demands of the assignment. And if you tinker, with attention to keeping the language and the story clear, you will probably also improve the piece as narration.
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