In African American literary contexts, runaway narratives draw from histories of self-emancipation under slavery, where escape involved courage, uncertainty, and reliance on networks of aid. Poetry using this framework may explore physical flight, psychological liberation, or symbolic refusal of domination. The term helps interpret works where movement away from oppression becomes a defining structure of identity, action, and narrative meaning.

The runaway narrative, rooted in the slave narrative tradition (Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Solomon Northup), carries into poetry a structural emphasis on dangerous movement toward freedom, on the precarious consciousness of the fugitive, and on the transformative power of escape even when ultimate safety remains uncertain. Students should understand that the runaway narrative is not simply a historical form: contemporary poets use its structure to address escapes from domestic violence, incarceration, poverty, and other forms of confinement. The Underground Railroad provides the richest network of imagery for this tradition. Related terms include fugitive voice, Underground Railroad, bearing witness, and carceral imagination.