Epic

by Andrew Benson Brown James Sale’s HellWard is the first volume of a planned trilogy entitled The English Cantos. If the quality of the current volume is any indication of the two forthcoming ones, then...

The American Revolution: An Epic Poem Chapter I by Andrew Benson Brown   Chapter II: Thomas Jefferson in Hell On July Fourth of Eighteen Twenty-Six, Old Thomas Jefferson was sent to Hell In his...

The Argument: The Poet, having escaped the HellWard of European and corrupt politicians, emerges into the penultimate HellWard depth where he, with his guide, Dante, meets the Poetasters from America and...

  Personae and scene: Vergil and Dante, somewhere in the mid-region of Hell. Dante: Honored Vergil, tell me where we’re going— It’s hard for me to take in what you’re showing Without some...

  Chapter I Who sings of arms these days? Or even men? The seed of Adam’s tucked inside Eve’s apple, And sits not taking root—his defect’s been Apparent since equality’s long grapple. Poor...

This isn’t so much an essay as it is an opinion piece where I shoot off a few words in praise of narrative poetry or, in other words, poetry that tells a story. From Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, to...

  Two Mistakes is a drama-length poem in metered verse for which I won second place in the Tom Howard / Margaret Reid Poetry Prize. The full work is posted here. It is based on Shakespeare's A...

  One interesting question is ‘why poetry, specifically?’ I am currently writing an ‘epic’ called The English Cantos, and I have chosen to write my epic in terza rima. There are many forms of...

A Clerihew is a four-line comic poem with a rigid rhyming scheme, aabb, but no metric requirements. It stands in stark contrast to the strict metric requirements with no rhyming scheme in the Iliad. This...

by Evan Mantyk Where is Homer? The epic poems of the famous Greek bard were the cornerstone of education for young Socrates, Alexander the Great, Roman emperors, William Shakespeare, and every serious...

Homer’s Iliad I.1-47. Translation in the epic hexameter, the meter of the Greek. Sing of the wrath, my goddess, of Peleus’ son Achilles, doomed and destructive, which gave the Achaeans numberless...

John Milton (Born December 9, 1608 – died November 8, 1674) was an English poet of the late Renaissance period. He is most noted for his epic poem on the fall of Satan and Adam and Eve’s ejection from the...

Dante’s Inferno, Canto I (Poem by Dante Alighieri / translation by J. Simon Harris in terza rima) In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself again in a dark forest, for I had lost the...

By James Sale There are nine Muses of poetry, daughters of Zeus or some say Apollo, and the Titaness, Mnenosyne, goddess of memory, past and future. And of these nine the most important is Kalliope, she of...

Chapter II: Visions and Dreams (For Chapter I click here.) THE band and locals, totaling fourteen, Retired to rest before the looming day. Some went to sleep but most in silence sat, Now meditating,...

Chapter I: Arrival in Beijing Inspired by real events   Sing to me, Muse, who flies through Heaven’s realms, Sing of that night when terror swept the land And peaceful practitioners of Falun...

By James Sale Frederick Glaysher claims to be an epic poet, and furthermore to have written an epic poem, The Parliament of Poets. This is a huge claim and an astonishing ambition. Is he? Has he? Before...

BOOK I – CANTO I: EULOGY If I should sing the saga of our time— war with the Heavens, human anarchy, and how, with LORD and Angels hurtled down to darkness, chaos fractures all: our state and...