Lyric Poetry

[shortstoryfan]

I've been trying to write poetry that has as little narrative material as possible (linear narrative material, since obviously every work has narrative material by default). So, I was wondering if anyone knew poets whose work was almost entirely lyric. Just images and sounds...related to one subject, or...Hmm. I really am not sure of what I'm looking for, maybe it doesn't exist.

[OrphanPip]

Maybe some imagist poems probably match what you're looking for.

Like Pound's "In a Station of the Metro," H.D.'s "Heat," or William Carlos Williams' "Red Wheelbarrow."

[shortstoryfan]

Hmm. I am maybe thinking of something more surreal...I don't know. It may not exist. I may have to figure out how to write this way on my own.

The imagist seem to be concerned with...a single image...or images for the sake of image?

I was kind of thinking that Shakespeare sonnets are more narrative than they actually are, but I think maybe professors try to make them that way so they make more sense to students. I'm not sure.

Thanks a lot though.

[Wilde woman]

So, I was wondering if anyone knew poets whose work was almost entirely lyric. Just images and sounds...related to one subject,

When I read your description, the first thing that jumped to mine was Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky".

You may also want to check out Gerald Manley Hopkins, one of my favorites. He loves playing with sounds, rhythms, and making up new words in his poems, though a great deal of them are religious in content. Also, try Rainer Maria Rilke; I admit I've only read his poems in translation, but they present some haunting images as well.

[Alexander III]

You may want to check out Rimbaud's prose poesy. I prefer his earlier works, but his later prose poems seem to fit the bill of your description.

[LLItaly]

Hmmm Keats' Ode to Autumn? Certainly some of Blakes songs of innocence and experience -- Tyger Tyger .....

Some poems by Jorie Graham? Montale would be a good poet to research from that point of view. Also H.D. --- Wallace Stevens probably has something in that category --

[lallison]

Check out "Praise to the End," by Theodore Rothke

I got a feeling that this is the sort of thing you're looking for, very lyrical and abstract. Its an amazing poem where Roethke explores the joys of nothingness.

The poem and book by the same title helped him win a Guggenheim Fellowship (1950), Poetry magazine's Levinson Prize (1951), and major grants from the Ford Foundation and the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1952.

[Gregory Samsa]

My favorite poet Tomas Tranströmer should fit you like a glove. The translation takes away a lot, but it's still wonderful.

After a Death

Once there was a shock
that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.
It keeps us inside. It makes the TV pictures snowy.
It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.

One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun
through brush where a few leaves hang on.
They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.
Names swallowed by the cold.

It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat
but often the shadow seems more real than the body.
The samurai looks insignificant
beside his armor of black dragon scales.


Black Postcards

In the middle of life, death comes
to take your measurements. The visit
is forgotten and life goes on. But the suit
is being sewn on the sly.