Depends what you mean by a long poem -- the sustained narrative text is
still alive and kicking, or was as late as Hughes' _Gaudete_.
I don't know if long mediations/testaments a la Wordsworth or Villon are
still being written, but I see no reason why they shouldn't be. (Whether it
is long enough to count as a long poem, Anne Stevenson certainly wrote her
own extended version of Villon in "A Testament" in _The Fiction Makers_.)
Other than that, I suspect that much of what was once done in the long poem
is now more commonly performed in the sequence. This has certainly been the
strategy used by Edwin Morgan for some considerable time.
(There's also the question as to whether what were once long "epic" poems
still exist as such, or whether -- I think this argument was made by Robert
Graves, and later by Philip Hobsbaum -- they have by now collapsed into
collections of shards and fragments.)
Certainly, I think the long poem has to "justify itself" in a way that
wasn't always the case. But then, when it comes to this, what else is new?
I blame the bloody novel myself.
Robin
(still technically homeless)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gerald Schwartz" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 3:11 PM
Subject: 25 Questions: # 5
25 Questions, # 5:
Is the long poem still relevant or is it just a museum?
Gerald Schwartz
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