H.D., Helen in Egypt

H.D., Helen in Egypt

United States written in Switzerland and completed in 1961     H.D., Helen in Egypt     When H. D., or Hilda Doolittle, completed her long poem Helen in Egypt in 1961, she explicitly construed it as a response to the rambling, ultimately unfinished modernist...
Turner, The New World

Turner, The New World

United States 1985 Frederick Turner, The New World: An Epic Poem When Frederick Turner’s The New World first appeared in 1985 in the Princeton series of Contemporary Poets there was nothing quite like it in American literature. Written in unrhymed, five-stress, often...
Turner, Genesis

Turner, Genesis

United States First publication date: 1988     Frederick Turner, Genesis: An Epic Poem of the Terraforming of Mars     In 1988 when Frederick Turner published the 10,000 lines of iambic pentameter that constitute Genesis, his epic on the transformation...
Walcott, Omeros

Walcott, Omeros

Saint Lucia (West Indies) Published: 1990 Derek Walcott Omeros Omeros (1990) upends the conventions of canonical Western epics by turning Caribbean fishermen into twentieth century heroes. In its titular allusion to Homer as well as in its topical and formal...
Turner, Apocalypse

Turner, Apocalypse

United States First publication date: 2016     Frederick Turner, Apocalypse: An Epic Poem   Frederick Turner’s third epic poem Apocalypse (2016) opens dramatically in the year 2067 with a colossal windstorm sweeping across the North Sea, causing...