Long poem

The long poem is a literary genre including all poetry of considerable length. Though the definition of a long poem is vague and broad, the genre includes some of the most important poetry ever written.

The long poem traces its origins to the ancient epics, such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. With more than 220000 (100000 shloka or couplets) verses and about 1.8 million words in total, the Mahābhārata is the longest epic poem in the world. It is roughly ten times the size of the Iliad and Odyssey combined, roughly five times longer than Dante's Divine Comedy, and about four times the size of the Ramayana and Ferdowsi's Shahnameh. In English, Beowulf and Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde are among the first important long poems. The long poem thrived and gained new vitality in the hands of experimental Modernists in the early 1900s and has continued to evolve through the 21st century.

The long poem has evolved into an umbrella term, encompassing many subgenres, including epic, verse novel, verse narrative, lyric sequence, lyric series, and collage/montage.

Lynn Keller describes the long poem as being a poem that is simply "book length," but perhaps the simplest way to define "long poem" is this: a long poem is long enough that its bulk carries meaning. Susan Stanford Friedman describes the long poem as a genre in which all poems that are not considered to be short can be a considered a part. These overly inclusive definitions, though problematic, serve the breadth of the long poem, and have fueled its adaptation as a voice for cultural identity among marginalized persons in Modern and Contemporary poetry. Only a broad definition can apply to the genre as a whole. In general, a poem is a "long poem" when its length enhances and expands upon the thematic, creative, and formal weight of the poem.

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