Poems 6-8 minutes long.?

Question

Okay guys I need some help. I've searched everywhere and I cant seem to find any poems that are between 6-8 minutes long. Its a theater project I am having to do where I have to find and memorize a poem. Do you guys know of any? Or atleast have any suggestions on where I could look.

Answer 1

If you pace it well, T.S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" should make it to about six minutes, if you include the epigraph (which is 6 lines of Italian excerpted from Dante's Inferno, but the rest of the poem is in English) and allow for a few dramatic pauses here and there during your performance.

http://www.prufrock.org/poem/fulltext.php

In my opinion, it's one of the most beautifully articulated literary works about what essentially amounts to a midlife crisis. The character speaking in the poem suffers from his sense of isolation as he feels his years accumulate. It's all the more brilliant for the fact that Eliot wrote this when he was in his 20s!

W.H. Auden, another modernist poet wrote a sonnet series entitled "In Time of War." There are 27 sonnets, so you may have to make a selection in order to meet your time restriction. The historical context for the sonnet series is World War II, but as the themes of war are universal, I'm sure it would have some resonant gravitas with the current war in Iraq. I wasn't able to find the series in its entirety online, but you can find the poem in his collected works:

http://www.amazon.com/W-H-Auden-Selected-W-H/dp/0679724834/ref=sr_1_2/103-0423833-7663845?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190247845&sr=8-2

Best of luck!

*Addendum 9/21/07*
Contrary to Nathan's estimate, Prufrock would have to be read quite briskly to make it under 3 minutes. Eliot's own voice recording of the poem actually runs a little over 8 minutes. The poem is great, but I'm not such a fan of his reading voice, unfortunately.

http://www.salon.com/audio/2000/10/05/eliot/

Also, it occurs to me none of the poems recommended thus far offer a woman's perspective, so I wanted to suggest Adrienne Rich's "Twenty-One Love Poems." Some of the poems operate to subvert the conventions of the Elizabethan sonnets written by men that idealized women to an extreme, some others address various woman in the present and in history. Again, you may have to choose a selection in order to make your time limit.

http://www.sabrinaaiellophotography.com/files/Complete_21_Love_Poems_by_Adrienne_Rich.htm

Answer 2

8 Minute Poems

Answer 3

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Poems 6-8 minutes long.?
Okay guys I need some help. I've searched everywhere and I cant seem to find any poems that are between 6-8 minutes long. Its a theater project I am having to do where I have to find and memorize a poem. Do you guys know of any? Or atleast have any suggestions on where I could look.

Answer 4

6-8 minutes is a LONG poem... Prufrock paced deliberately slow, should only be 3 minutes or so.

Try one of Browning's longer narrative poems. Fra Lippo Lippi comes to mind. It's one of my favorites and its a lovely dramatic monologue.

Answer 5

My recommendation would be to recite "down and out", by Clarence Leonard Hay. Use this link for the poem and a brief background of the author: http://www.frfrogspad.com/tropics.htm

Besides being a poem that tells a story, it also provides moral lessons and has theatrical promise...you can sit in a chair at a table sideways to the audience, turn in their direction and recite it...the poem is about a man who's been there, done that, and is going to die...talking to some young man who thinks he's going to become an easy millionaire by being in charge of a copra (dried coconut) plantation. He tells him how it really is and how it really goes, while giving him a synopsis of his life's story...all of which takes place around Panama...if you have a bit of the actor in you, you can really do this up right!

good luck...wish I could be there to see you recite it.

Answer 6

My fav poet is Banjo Patterson. He wrote incredibly long poems. Not sure what context you are looking for, for your piece, but these are an awesome collection of Australian history.