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NEW POETS OF RUM RAM RUF: M. Wendy Hennequin

  The New Poets of Rum-Ram-Ruf:  M. Wendy Hennequin and Fan Fiction In my introduction to Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival , my first section is called “The Story of the Modern Revival.” Every story needs a hero, though, and our story’s unsung hero is undeniably contemporary fandom. Many years ago, I once read an essay by Harlan Ellison praising SF for having so many big-name authors emerge from the ranks of SF fandom. He considered this situation distinct from mainstream, non-genre literature, and while I won’t agree with Ellison completely – as one of my students once told me, she has an older brother named Geoffrey because of how much their mother loves The Canterbury Tales – but still, genre fandom seems special. Such fandom has been a guiding light for the Modern Revival, too. We’ve already touched upon several revivalists with impeccable fan roots: Fletcher Pratt, Poul Anderson, Patrick Rothfuss, Paul Edwin Zimmer. Nonetheless, most people tend to think

NEW POETS OF RUM RAM RUF: Three Impressionists (part 2)

Newest post in the series ! This one tackles what happens when steampunk poetry meets the medieval alliterative meter.

A review of ULFHILDR by Mary Thaler

So, Paul Deane just clued me into a new long alliterative poem, Ulfhildr by Mary Thaler, that's hot off the presses -- published November 10, 2023. I wrote it a positive review on Amazon and Goodreads, because really, we're all in this together. You'll find that review below. However, I was a bit more skeptical about some of Thaler's metrical choices, and since I shared these with the group at Forgotten Ground Regain, I'm posting them here below my review. REVIEW This is an exciting new long poem in a modified form of the Old English alliterative meter. Calling it an "epic" (as the back cover does) is probably a misnomer; Thaler's narrative is quite linear, and it contains few twists or complications. Yet it's also peppered with powerful passages that show exactly what a modern poet can accomplish with an archaic medieval poetics. The heroine's closing monologue is particular strong. In fact, we find a stronger feminist element in her speeches

NEW POETS OF RUM RAM RUF: Three Impressionists (part 1)

So, last week, I described my purist-impressionist scale as a 1–10 spectrum of historical metrical fidelity. Yet I know some people will naturally (and automatically) discount certain impressionists solely on the suspicion that they don’t know much, if anything, about genuine medieval alliterative poetics. And, granted, some revivalists do not, but even if true, I suggested this doesn’t necessarily impact a text’s literary merit one way or another. Proof is always in the pudding, though, so let’s prepare to be slathered in pudding. We’ll be turning to three exciting revivalists whose deviations from the historical meters are, bluntly, less than fully intentional, yet their texts are both fascinating and critically interesting. Without further ado, our first poet is ….. PATRICK ROTHFUSS Call me biased (and I probably am), but the honor of most metrically bonkers revivalist goes to Patrick Rothfuss. He included two poems in The Wise Man’s Fear (2011), and from a purist’s perspect

NEW POETS OF RUM RAM RUF: Purists vs. Impressionists

One oddity about the Modern Revival is that, historically, critics don’t normally categorize literary movements according to poetic form alone. For instance, we don’t talk about the “Rhyming Octosyllabic Revolution” of Anglo-Norman England, or the “Blank Verse-ism” of the Elizabethan stage. This oddity has been one reason (out of several) some medievalists have challenged the notion of an “alliterative revival” in the mid-14 th century at all. After all, no medieval source ever mentions such a movement. The whole idea is a hypothesis put forth by modern scholars. Although my Brit Lit I survey course in college confidently taught the mid-14 th century revival as accepted fact, quite a few recent scholars have argued that just because various late medieval poems share a certain set of metrical similarities, they needn’t constitute an actual community of poets with similar attitudes or aims. The whole notion of metrical revivalism in the later Middle Ages is, therefore, a shot in the da

Review Essay on JK Rowling's Legacy

It's rare to have my mind blown by a review essay ..... but Joseph Rex Young's review of two edited collections about HARRY POTTER, published last year in Mythlore , is not only the single best thing I've yet seen written on J.K. Rowling's legacy, but it's also simply one of the best *written* (and most literary) reviews I've ever had the pleasure to read.   Young's review is open access and can be found here . If interested in Rowling studies, check it out.

Thoughts upon Reading Tolkien's New & Expanded LETTERS

So, I'm reading through the newly expanded version of Tolkien's Letters. One thing I hadn't properly realized is that these letters were part of Carpenter's original manuscript back in 1981, but Carpenter had to cut them due to cost. Turns out that Carpenter had a pretty keen eye on what could bear cutting -- most of this new stuff isn't terribly interesting, but I discovered a few nuggets. VINDICATED!! (Me, sorta) Naturally, whenever you read new primary material, your first instinct is to check to see if anything contradicts something you've said in print ... especially biographically. Well, I've made three big "biographical" claims, and here's my sigh of relief: Concerning my claim that, in 1954, Tolkien and colleagues contrived to create CS Lewis's academic chair at Cambridge in exchange for them nominating EM Forster for the Nobel Prize. Nothing in  Letters  supports or contradicts this. In my recent article for  Notes & Queries ,