Some think that a story has no place
in poetry - 'Put it in the short stories, '
he said, dismissing a poem I wrote
as a narrative, as though such verse
must be relegated to short fiction.

Must I go back to Beowulf, composed
in the first half of the eighth century,
to illustrate the validity of the form
(written in meter without using rime) ?

Robert Browning's The Ring and the Book
is a long poem of dramatic monologues
in twelve books concerning a murder
and an adulterous affair in Florence.

Less scribbling and more reading
might improve one's perspective,
don't you think?

Michael Pruchnicki

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/long-poems-short-stories/