Here in the UK we have National Story Telling Week coming up from the 31st of Jan to 8th of Feb 2026, as run by the Society for Storytellers. There are lots of local events around the UK and little snippets being posted to their youtube and it is not too late to be involved.

The theme itself makes for a wonderful writing prompt: Speaking Story Into The Darkness

But more than that there is an intrinsic connection between storytelling and poetry – rhyme and rhythm are memory aids as well as a way to help give performance of a narrative a kind of energy and movement it can sometimes be lacking.

At the turn of the millenia there was a tug of war between those who felt poetry should rhyme and those who thought that was childish and rhyme was shunted to the side, seen as only for comedy or poetry for children. By the end of the first decade of the 2000’s the narrative poem, whether rhyming or not, was struggling to find a home especially if they were not comedic. The more serious stuff hit the slam scene in the US and UK differently with it taking off in the US and being viewed as perhaps not quite the thing in many slams. This trend has slowely reversed itself with the help of hiphop spoken word artists and the organisers of slams opening it back up.

Occassionally during this period the narrative poems would find themselves at storytelling events instead, where the rich imagery and borrowing from Folk lore and tales was understood and appreciated (most of the time). Often storytellers will have some song or poetic element to their tellings and the ancient epic stories such as Beowulf and The Oddessy seen as they are, as the beginnings of literature were spoken poems first.

The rest of the world seems to have carried on quite happily with their narrative poems, both rhymed and story telling in general.

How is all of this relevant to the current poetry composer? Well Folk traditions, myths, legends and related areas contain so much material that can spark a poem. Also it can be nice to go back to roots and create a story in poetic form.

Why not listen to some stories, flood your mind with folk tales or watch the newer more contempory story tellers – what styles are they using? Would it work in a poem? Sometimes open mics or storytelling circles can develop an emergent theme – onn that was not there initially but becomes apparent as the event draws on. Take that theme and carry it with you, jot it down in a note book and gather other tales and imagery to do with it.

To Do’s to Try:

  1. Write an original narrative poem – these are poems that tell a story, they can be rhyming or non rhyming. This is your story from your imagination.
  2. Find a folk tale that resonates with you and write it in poetic form.
  3. Look at themes and imagery across stories and write about the specific theme. Again the theme for this year’s Story Telling Week would be a lovely one to write from.

Now go start researching and writing!