Storytelling: Poetry

The past two years or so I've spent a LOT of time thinking about the modern art of storytelling - basically, who tells stories and how they tell them. We've never had more ways of getting stories out there than we do right now. Most of my thoughts have focused on WHY a story should be told a certain way. Here are some of the conclusions I've come to.


We'll start with one of my personal favorites:


POETRY


In some ways, poetry's one of the oldest forms of storytelling/artistic expression we've got. Rhyming verse has its roots in old oral storytelling traditions - it's easy to memorize and easy to recite.

In recent years, poetry's been less about rhyme and meter and more about raw, verbal imagery. It's the clever turn of phrase, the subtle metaphor that rests over you like a blanket or stirs you up to action. Rhymes are still a part of poetry, but they more often find their place in children's poetry anymore.

Formal experimentation has always been a big part of poetry writing, but the forms have gotten even more diverse over the last 100 years. Just about anything goes - making pictures out of words, changing fonts and colors, stream-of-consciousness free-association... anything goes.

Poetry's greatest strengths are its versatility and relative simplicity. True, you CAN write a 300-page epic poem, but, usually, 300 LINES is considered a long poem. Poems can be written on ANY subject, from the mundane to the sublime, from the profane to the divine. Good poetry merits revisitation, doesn't demand a lot of time, and leaves you feeling NEW.

Poetry's biggest problem, though, is in it's inaccessibility. People don't GET poetry anymore, because poetry's not written for the people as a whole. It's incredibly esoteric - just because a poem CAN be simple doesn't mean it will. "Good" poetry has long been dominated by academics, who spend more time in self-congratulation that they forget the poem's original audience: the small group gathered around the fireplace.

The lack of fireplaces in our nation may also contribute to poetry's decline.


Joking aside, I really believe poetry IS in decline. With the advent of the movie, the TV series, and countless other media that are easily accessible and easily understandable, poetry may be on its way out. But just because poetry's no longer culturally relevant doesn't make it any less worthwhile as a course of study. People may not be able to name any poets from the past ten years, but EVERYONE knows how to finish the couplet, "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I." Poetry's important historically, and, therefore, will always maintain SOME level of relevancy.


Besides, poetry's sneaky. A person who would never buy a book of poetry may pick up a novel with some particularly vivid description, or watch a movie with one or two striking lines of dialog, or pick up the latest Eminem album and hear a fantastic rhyme (Anyone who can rhyme "tornado," "volcano," and "away now" is a genius in my book). Even undercover, poetry will always be around.

So you want to tell a story. Why write a poem?

• Strong, economic language - poetry's perfect for people who love their language.
• Lots of possibility for experimentation.
• Very small, but incredibly enthusiastic, audience.
• Lots of application outside of the field of poetry.