What is a narrative poem? Definitions and examples
Ollie Ander
Is probably just a couple cats in a trench-coat—the hair shedding and sunlight napping are highly suspect.
Since the rapid popularity of free-form poetry in the late 2010s, writers have been expanding their repertoires to include poetic ideations. There are many branches of poetry and it might take a while to find the right one for you—which one clicks?
If you’re a long-form writer, or you enjoy playing around with scansion, narrative poetry might be the calling for you!
What is a Narrative Poem?
Where some forms of poetry focus exclusively on conveying a thought or image, a narrative poem tells a story. Narrative Poems are regarded as one of the oldest forms of storytelling and are thus often classified and studied as "literary art".
The story of a Narrative Poem does not need to have the full structure or detail of a novel, but it should follow a character along a journey of some sort. Narrative Poems harness traditional storytelling elements like characters, plot, and setting, while also incorporating poetic meter, forms, and sometimes rhyme.
Examples of Narrative Poems
The most recognizable examples of Narrative Poems are classics such as The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and The Mahabharata. Although narrative poems have existed since the beginnings of recorded histories, they are not exclusive to that long-ago period, and have influenced other notable names like Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, which is a retelling of the stories of Camelot. You may also recognise a guy named Shakespeare, whose works (although predominantly plays and sonnets) were impacted by the style, infusing his narratives with meter and verse.
There are five categories of Narrative Poem: The Epic, The Ballad, The Idyll, The Lay, and The Novel in Verse. Novels in Verse are rising in popularity as they do not adhere to any strict rules of execution and are much more accessible to the average writer. The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo is a prime example of a novel in verse (and therefore a Narrative Poem) breaking into the modern literature scene!
What isn’t a Narrative Poem?
A form of poetry that often gets confused for Narrative Poetry is Lyric Poetry. The easiest way to identify and separate these two types of poems is the flow of time throughout the piece. Lyric Poems fixate on elements of a moment to convey their message, often making them feel ethereal as they are explored through the prose, whereas a Narrative Poem relies on the passing of time to tell its story. Narrative Poems need a progression of time to move characters forward, through events and their actions.
Tips for writing your own Narrative Poem
Writing a Narrative Poem can be an artistically fulfilling way to tell your story, and a great creative exercise. Here are a few tips for writing your own.
Study the Greats
As with most things, the hardest but most fruitful lessons come from studying "The Greats". If you found it difficult (most likely boring) studying classical literature in school, don’t be intimidated by the idea of picking them up again. Take it at your own pace, and focus on the things that interest you most.
If you’d like to dabble in Narrative Poetry that harnesses meter, get a pen and a copy of a Narrative Poem, and have some fun ruling out their use of scansion and syllables. It should help inform your own use of language down the road!
Write physically
As with the suggestion above, it’s useful to mark up your own writing too. Get off the computer, get a pad of paper and a pen and mark up your own work. Play around not just with the words in your piece, but the lines, the spacing, the syntax. They don’t call it literary art for nothing–get scribbling!
Read Aloud
Lastly, read your writing aloud! Reading out loud will help you get a better handle on the flow of your words, where readers might get stuck, or punctuation should be altered.
We write for the love of the craft but sometimes having a little extra incentive doesn’t hurt. Whether you want to share your new Narrative Poem with the world, or just want to test its mettle, consider$ submitting your work to a poetry contest!$
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