Living outside the Blast

Andrew Hudgins's “After the Lost War”

Abstract

Andrew Hudgins published his narrative poem, After the Lost War, in 1988. This essay attempts to see whether this work, set in and after the Civil War, can be considered as belonging to a tradition of American historical narrative verse. In the 19th century various poets endeavoured to bestow dignity on episodes of American history by celebrating them in verse, but few of these works are now considered canonical. Hudgins's poem is perhaps more fruitfully to be seen as a work by a contemporary writer who has learned the lessons of Modernism, with its emphasis on concentration of effect, but who is nonetheless attracted to the possibilities of extended narrative. The success of his work depends to a great degree on his adoption of an intensely focused point of view and on his handling of the narrative voice; by convincing us of the reality of his central character, he involves us directly in the historical episodes he so sensitively evokes.