there’s a problem and beauty with anything. and a vast tract of doesn’t-make-a-difference.
brokering in generalities, what frustrates me about narrative poems is the built in shushing; one thing at a time. the structure/stricture of one poem = one idea. it’s kind of like a grammar-school sentence. even a very long poem can keep this one-subject/theme rule.
is that the distinction between a long poem and a poem which is long? a long poem can have more than one thesis, arc and conclusion? it can become a yard sale of a poem. (am I getting warmer?)
what I’ll call “revolutionary poems” that aim to break syntax to reset the bones of society that just become a jumbled list poem that jumps from subject to subject between words or phrases instead of waiting for anything to develop except accumulation of academic concepts, that is still a shushing. the thing is gushing. no natural speech allowed. no pursuing one thought allowed. sure, there may be an overarcing theme once you get into it but the internal logic may mandate that it can only speak in such and such a way, as narrowly as the stage face of good ole boy poems where everyone makes plain statements of marxist equality.
stories with line breaks are tiring because they insist that short-vision can be wrapped up quickly. poems that refuse story-telling are tiring because there’s no way to predict where you are. is this the first 1/4 or towards the end? it’s kind of a stuck mid-prairie landscape where you can’t orient distance and mete your focus and energy accordingly.
“slight poems” are insulting because they are not profound. you’re telling me this why? I have spent time and got nothing in return.
autobiographical poems can be relating what one feels a need to say, driven out of you, or they may have the telltale of narrator disconnected from the domestic scene, described feeling numbed, bummed or awkward and alone while in a car or empty house. no one ever headhops into such a dull moment for fiction.
“profound” cosmic poems are eye-glazing because they accumulate to protesting too much that life has significance bounding around every corner and everything is due to be imbued.
fragment allows the whole. the whole allows the fragment. we can speak various dialects and subject without conflict.
have I covered all the downsides?
if and when I wake up encouraged and energized I can do the flip side.