Regarding length, it matters more to me whether I find a poem interesting. 
If I like it and it's also long, I think, "all the more for me to enjoy". If 
I don't like it, then being short on its own won't redeem it. One of my 
favourite poems is EB Browning's "Aurora Leigh" which is a novel in blank 
verse. Another that I like is The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. That gets the 
best of both worlds, because each stanza can be lifted out on its own and 
enjoyed like a haiku (Japanese for quickly). Famously the first:

Awake! for morning in the bowl of night
Has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight:
and lo! the hunter of the east has caught
The sultan's turret in a noose of light.

It's a great one for the kids at the top of cliffs with extravagant arm 
movements and the clouds scudding in -  the time of day doesn't matter - or 
you can say it ironically on a Sunday morning.

I'm not allergic to repetition BTW. Unless you use exactly the same words, 
are two things ever truly repeated? Even if you did use the same words they 
can developed in different ways. There are plenty of lines in Shakespeare 
like this. Actors say them differently and they are received differently.

I suppose it comes down to how confident you are in the link that language 
forms with another person. Isn't it the case sometimes, that you have to say 
things in different ways for people to grasp what you wanted to say once?

Colin


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 4:26 PM
Subject: discussion topic: series of poems


> Matt writes:
> "to open up another discussion point, what has been everybody's 
> experiences of writing poem sequences like this?"
> and he goes on: "As well as the discipline that James mentions, it must 
> offer an opportunity to allow poems to work off each other, but I suppose 
> it carries its own risks, such as repetition. I ask because I've been 
> working on a series of linked poems and prose pieces about a very obscure 
> historical character, and have found it both more difficult than writing 
> 'occasional' poems, but also more rewarding in many ways. I'd be 
> interested to hear people's thoughts."
>
> Hi Matt (and all else who're reading this),
>
> I, too, find myself wanting to write poems that are in a series. I find, 
> however, I'm not too disciplined in how I approach it. I don't, for 
> instance, map out the issues/themes/topics I feel important to cover in 
> the series, I just write one and then another - then put them in a 
> possible order and start wondering about how to fill in the gaps!
> I guess, because we're conditioned to read and write short poems - and the 
> long poem has fallen from favour - narrative poetry, as a genre, needs 
> sequences or series of poems.
> I wonder, sometimes, about the attention span of readers of poetry. 
> Perhaps that's why I feel happier reading a series of short, 
> self-contained, poems that have subtle links, and underlying impressions 
> that rise to the surface when I discover them, but I'm daunted when faced 
> with a poem that goes on for pages and pages. However...
> It could be that short poems are like nibbling chocolate, or eating 
> oranges (for rhyming poems) or plums(from the icebox in the fridge), 
> whereas a series of poems is like a 5 course meal with lots of things in 
> each course, and a fine wine or two (and even with sherry before and 
> port - or a really good Malt! - afterwards!).
> Bob
>