Anecdotal Poetry

Black Box Poetry

Sean Hughes made such a great point in our occasional poetry episode, that we did a spin off episode to address his ideas about anecdotal poetry: which isn't a thing, but we might convince you that it is by the end of the episode! If you missed that episode, Sean says that an occasional poem responds to an event in the public consciousness--like an inauguration or a war. But, occasional poems will often swerve into more personal commentary about an individual's experience of that event so they seem less about the occasion and more about individual experience. Furthermore, there are many poems that are more engaged with an individual's reflection or memory that describe an event and effect storytelling, but aren't about an event in the public consciousness. To interrogate this phenomenon we discuss "Adlestrop" by Edward Thomas; "Celestial Music" by Louise Glück; and "Anecdote of the Jar" by Wallace Stevens.