Poetry Soup for the Novelist Soul

Bro. Yao

Here, Poet Bro. Yao shares some words on poetry that can aid in creating works of fiction:

For many of us the attraction to poetry is centered around the lyric.  There poetry operates like music.  It rhymes and sings and often captures a spirit that is beyond words.  But poetry is also well known for it’s narrative abilities.  A well written narrative poem gives enables a reader to feel like they have received a story, it’s voices and completeness in a short and compact form.

Derek Walcott‘s Collected Poems 1948-1984 is an old work written by the Noble Prize Winner and master of the long poem.  A notable selection in the poem that may be of interest to fiction writers is “The Schooner Flight“.

 

The works of Pablo Neruda are a must for all writers regardless.  His Captain’s Verses can inspire one to speak of love with a certainty and beauty that is certain to intoxicate readers.

 

Many years ago, I stumbled upon the writer Galway Kinnell.  I was captured by a poem of his called “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps” which for me captured a particular of the intimacy of a marriage with children.  As a narrative poem it is an excellent example of poetry’s ability to show intimacy between people-the detail of it-which in many ways serves to convince fiction readers that the people are real.  I recommend his A New Selected Poems.

 

The persona poem-or poem written in the voice of a person or object is an excellent way to begin to understand the way in which poetry can capture the essence of a thing.  The ability to convey this essence should be helpful in writing fiction.  Patricia Smith’s Blood Dazzler is a book length manuscript written on Hurricane Katrina.  The most memorable poems for me where those written in the voice of the storm itself.

 

Last, I will mention A. Van Jordan‘s M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A.  This book length manuscript came to the author after he read an obituary about a young woman who was the first African American to win the spelling bee in Ohio.  The collection of poems creates a series of moments whose larger arc carries the story of her life.  This type of collection has become more and more common. One of the other popular examples is Thomas and Beulah written by Rita Dove which won her the Pultizer Prize.

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