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Long poems are extreme. They're too bold, too ordinary, too self-centered, too expansive, too grand, too banal, too weird, too much. They revel in going too far; they eschew caution and practicality and categorization and even, perhaps, poetry itself, which as a form tends to value the economy of language. These poems are anti-tweets though they often contain twitter-like language.
From An Anatomy of the Long Poem by poet Rachel Zucker on the Poets.org website. She too has a special love for the long poem. Why? Among a list of reasons she includes:
Long poems take time to read.
Long poems allow the poet to change her mind.
Long poems are imperfect.
2 comments:
thanks for this Michael, I get a bit impatient around long poems. I think it goes back to wading through endless dense poems for 'o' level with an uninspired teacher, put me completely off poetry for over three decades. Maybe I will dig out those poems and see what I make of them now, and be more brave about tackling other long poems...
Thanks AM. Coincidentally Todd Swift in his Eyewear blog today mentions Long Poem Magazine: http://www.longpoemmagazine.org.uk/
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