Wondering (again) if anyone ever looked up my two book-length narrative
poems, The Adventure (1986) and Happiness (1998), both Story Line
Press. Though the second was billed, against my wishes, as "A Novel in
Verse," both tell coherent, non-"splintered" stories in, I think,
authentically poetic, non-novelistic ways. I wouldn't claim that either
is an epic, but I firmly believe a revival of epic is a real, and vital,
possibility. Both my books were meant to contribute to that
possibility. The "tale of the tribe" aspect is certainly open to
reinterpretation; I see my tribe as that of rootless cosmopolitan
intellectuals.
|