Mode in Poems

Identifying modes of poems is an underused method of diagnosing why they satisfy the reader (or don’t). In this workshop, we’ll define the four basic modes of poems (lyric, narrative, argument, description) and read examples of each. Then we’ll turn to participants’ poems, asking whether the poem’s current structure is its best structure. To do that, we might imagine a narrative poem as a lyric or vice versa. Bring copies of two poems that you’re unhappy with.