The Diviners

by Robert McDowell

A book-length poem that brilliantly reinvents narrative poetry, The Diviners is a single poem divided into five chapters, each a different decade. McDowell relates the most crucial developments in each decade spanning from the 1950s through 1990s, of the shared lives of Al, Eleanor, and their son, Tom. The Diviners records in blank verse the family's beginnings, their growth, their problems, their separation, and their ultimate reunion. The events...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1586540572
• ISBN13: 9781586540579
• Release Date: July 2019
• Publisher: Story Line Press
• Length: 100 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great Narrative Poem

The Diviners is McDowell's book length poem about a family as it falls apart through five decades. It's a poignant story told in iambic pentameter, and is a prime example of the comeback the narrative poem has been making (as is Dave Mason's "The Country I Remember"). The first chapter, "The Fifties", is truly a great piece of work, and appeared in a slightly different form in the Best American Poetry 1989.