Poetry and Comics

[kjn]

Among my other sins, I participate in a local poetry club, and it struck me that some of things that characterise poetry—condensed imagery or storytelling and events or characteristics implied rather than spelt right out—fits very well with the storytelling of comics.

If we look at children's picture books, there are lots of them that are written in various forms of verse, and just as comic books for many children is a route to reading longer prose texts, comics should also be an excellent way to introduce poetry or verse as well. But so far I haven't found many examples of poetry within comics, and I'd like to find more.

Perhaps the best example I have found so far is the short three-page story "Roots and Leaves", written by Jody Houser in Mother Panic: Gotham A.D. #3. It's an excellent little story about Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, written as a well-formed sonnet.

The Wonder Woman 75th Anniversary Special included a splash spread titled "Wonder Woman 75 Song" by Marguerite Bennett. It doesn't include a melody, but it follows rather closely to the common metre (with some few minor changes), a very popular form songs and melodies. The two most famous tunes are probably "House of the Rising Sun" and "Amazing Grace", but there are plenty more.

The two examples above are in bound verse, that is in a fixed metrical pattern, and it's the style of poetry I'm personally most interested in. Free verse can be trickier to identify, but I think part of Kelly Sue DeConnick's Aquaman run uses it at times, like in #48 (from Mother Shark) or #52 (in the narration during the funeral). At least it can be read as free verse.

One type I'm not that interested in myself is the prophetic or incantation verses that are popular now and then, like the verse to call the Demons Three (which is in catalectic trochaic tetrameter with an aabb rhyming pattern). Well, unless they're good or at least interesting…

[kjn]

Just read Wonder Woman #80, written by G Willow Wilson. Diana's entire internal narration is written in free verse, and a really impressively handled one too.