Lyric poetry is usually regarded as a genre in its own right, delineated from narrative and dramatic texts. This publication intends to use categories from narrative theory to develop the argument that poems also display basic characteristics seen as indicative of the narrative (in particular, the perspectivized presentation of sequentially ordered events). The results are firstly significant revisions of genre-theory, and secondly a considerable extension and precision in processes of textual analysis - including the use of scheme theory as used in cognitive psychology.