Poetry in English since the Second World War has produced a number of highly original narrative works, as diverse as Derek Walcott's Omeros, Ted Hughes' Gaudete and Anne Stevenson's Correspondences. At the same time, poetry in general has been permeated by narrative features, particularly those linguistic characteristics that Mikhail Bakhtin considered peculiar to the novel, and which he termed "dialogic." This book examines the narrative and dialogic elements in the work of a range of poets from Britain, America, Ireland, Australia and the Caribbean, including poetry from the immediate...