The Rose

Author’s Gab, Reader Talk.

A letter to you, the reader, so that you can finally figure out what I’m thinking.

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This Month: An ode to Robinson Jeffers

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“Nature knows that people are a tide that swells and in time will ebb, and all their works dissolve … As for us: We must uncenter our minds from ourselves. We must unhumanize our views a little and become confident as the rock and ocean that we are made from.”

― Robinson Jeffers

Dear Readers,

In honor of National Poetry Month this April, I thought I would devote this Ad Lib to exploring a poet I have been exploring lately: Robinson Jeffers. But, I also think there’s a subtle lesson in this, too, which is: read other people’s work. There’s a variety of poetry out there, and I feel like you will learn something by reading another poet or creative writer. This is an exercise in that. I won’t go into the merits of reading here, as I feel that’s another Ad Lib. I do, however, feel the need to emphasize it’s importance before we begin.

I have been entering poetry competitions this year to try to get my work out there. In March, I stumbled across a competition by Tor House, established in remembrance of the poet Robinson Jeffers. I, of course, decided to enter. And, while I haven’t heard anything back yet, I’m pretty sure I was disqualified. Because, all submissions had to be postmarked March 14; and, while mine went in the mail March 14, it sat in a UPS bin all weekend and wasn’t postmarked until March 16. I emailed the contest with my receipt, but I haven’t heard anything back yet about that either.

What that competition did do is get me thinking about the poet, Robinson Jeffers, whom I had never heard of before. So, I decided to a little research to understand his writing and who he was in his time. I remember coming across the following YouTube video, from a Jeffers enthusiast, who explained it to me:

I have since purchased “The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers” in paperback, which is a large volume of Jeffers’ collected poetry. It also includes some background information on Jeffers in the preface. The poetry section itself is over 700 pages long, not including the section on prose and the index. One poem, “The Loving Shepherdess”, which I have yet to read the length of, extends at least 60 pages long. In this regard, I feel I have only begun to delve into Jeffers’ work, which feels rather daunting, having suddenly happened upon him after not knowing who he was to begin with. I spoke to Isabella J. Mansfield about this also, and she had not heard of him either. But, for one so not heard of, his work is quite extensive. Have we failed to put emphasis on it?

I think, in short, this is because we do not always write poetry like this now. Sure, we write poetry, but this poetry is not 60 pages long. We even write narrative poetry, the type of poetry Jeffers is famous for writing, but we have lost our concept of it and perhaps choose prose as a longer format for our work. This, however, is not how people have done things in the past. They have chosen instead to put their longer forms of writing into longer poems, such as the famous epic poem, Homer’s “The Illiad”. These function similarly to what we would consider a novel today, except in poetic form.

This got me thinking about what narrative poetry is and why Jeffers is famous for it. It’s actually more common than you think! According to Google, narrative poetry is a form of poetry that tells a story, often using the voices of both a narrator and characters in metered verse. It can be short or long and the story it relates to can be complex. I found this video helpful in its explanation:

Since the video doesn’t include it, I’ll include some information here on epic poetry, a type of narrative poetry that functions like a novel, and “The Illiad”, the famous epic, for reference:

Think about that. ~

Sincerely, Your Author,

Jessica A. McLean

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Recent Happenings:

• Recent Ad-Lib Activity:
  • The April 2026 Ad Lib is here!
    • TBA: I’m working on finishing my series on form. Stay tuned.
• Recently Published:
  • Poems Added:
    • “Red is the color (Erythropsia)”, a prose poem
    • “Emergency room”, a prose poem
• Editing, editing, and more editing.
• Waiting

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