Alliterative Poems Have Returned . . . Again!
Let us take a trip into the recent past, in more ways than one eventually perhaps, but right for the moment to January 15 and “Winning Writers Lists Mouse, Alliteration.” Then, leaving the “Mouse,” somewhat farther back to phrases like “Modern Alliterative Poetry Book Finally Published,” and even warnings like “Beowulf Beware” (cf., December 15 2023, June 24 2022, et al.). Remember now? Dennis Wise’s scholarly anthology SPECULATIVE POETRY AND THE MODERN ALLITERATIVE REVIVAL, and with two poems by me.
So now comes the announcement (in sections, I think, on Twitter/X — I not being an indulger, this is what I was sent): James S. Dorr’s poems “The Westfarer” and “The Worm in the Wood” are now available on my website, Forgotten Ground Regained. “The Westfarer” is a long narrative poem in alliterative verse that tells the adventures and misadventures of the Norse settlers of Vinland and their encounters with the Skraelings (Native Americans). “The Worm in the Wood” is a narrative poem in loosely alliterating long lines that casts Arthur and his knights as colonial settlers, and the Fair Folk as the aboriginal people of Britain. Both poems were also recently reprinted in Dennis W. Wise’s Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival: A Critical Anthology
Yes, more modern alliterative poetry, a genre of sorts in its own right these days! And once more my two poems from some years back, “The Worm in the Wood” and “The Westfarer” making the crossing, this time on a website by Paul Deane, “Forgotten Ground Regained,” celebrating a trend more widespread — and serious — than one might have imagined. And interesting too, even for mostly-short-fiction horror/dark fantasy “sometimes poet” writers like . . . me.
But let’s put it in Paul’s own words (and then, perhaps, give the site a try*?):
Forgotten Ground Regained (https://alliteration.net) is a website devoted to modern English alliterative verse – the kind of poetry you hear the Rohirrim quoting in the Lord of the Rings. For example, Eomer’s song:
Out of doubt, out of dark to the day’s rising
I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
To hope’s end I rode and to heart’s breaking:
Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!
The site contains the largest collection of alliterative poems (and links to alliterative poems) available on the web, along with a wide range of resources for people who want to learn about alliterative verse in modern or older forms of English. New issues containing original poems are released quarterly. Submissions are welcome.
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*(To see my poems, for instance, you can click on “Authors,” scroll down to my name under the Ds, then click on the poems’ titles)
