John Weil talks about the confusion and distinctions between story telling and narrative. His thoughts and examples I’ll be going back and forth over for a bit:
“There is no story told here, but there is narrative arc. The poem might seem nonsensical, especially if you insist on logical exposition or a concrete point (which is journalism and information–not narrative).[…]
I like that distinction between information, instrumental reporting of facts and the point versus something more multi-pointed that is within reach of poetry more than journalism. If an article wanders all over the place, it is more likely to give a headache and drag. If a poem wanders a lot, there may be layers of points and meanings and cross-connections. Done well it is not muddy, but solid and energizing.
Maybe it is a matter of cut off points. I don’t like confessional raw complaint tarted up to be called poetry. I don’t like people having no perspective and insight and passing that along. Get back to me when you have something. I don’t like blathers of blog posts being called reports or essays. I don’t like nattering on paper to be called an essay or short story because it was typeset. There has to be more craft than blurt. I like words like essay or poem or report or short story or novel to contain something specific. Every photo with a person in it is not a portrait. But lines can blur. I like some flash fiction. I like some things that spin on the spot or sit still or observe without editorial comment or are all editorial so long as they don’t claim to be non-fiction fact. Things that don’t add up to story arc are a relief from pervasive need for arc. Flat can be good. What is narrative tho? An imposition of imagination, in cooperation with the dots put down?
He goes on to say,
The problem students have with narrative is its mundanity. It is not the narrative, but the absence of verbal surprise they are missing. Verbal surprise is always overrated by young poets. They mistake confusion and flash for lyricism. Lyricism breaks forth when the narrative arc, the interior laws organic to the poem are compelled, even forced to sing […]
[T]he poem obeys its own immutable laws of disconnection. That in itself is a ceremony and a narrative. ask: How do we make narrative beyond mere story telling? I tell you, no good story obeys story telling. It obeys narrative–the arc of being.
How much do you lead and how much can you leave to the reader to bring with her?
Narrative has a tension and internal logic that binds and gives momentum and the sense of intention. The dissolving “almost” he refers to gives it the sense of significant. It is flagrant, fire, a rant of flags on fire. It is hard to miss and it isn’t so much yadder the way a prose rant is, perhaps because of how it is cupped. It is boiled down like an elevator pitch, considered like a superbowl ad. It doesn’t just blather off in an uncontrolled way blind to audience. It is oratory compressed for the page and its visual constraints.
Does a poetic narrative need a conscious designer, or unconscious intention leaning in? Does it need editing away from first thought is schmaltz thought and sidestepping all the usual traps and tropes?
We can space out at anything, deny there is meaning in what is made, or impose significance and attachment to a sunbeam? Does it require the participation of the trained, informed reader/listener, or a love of bullshit and a vapidness that rebells against sense, or a love of nonsense? Is it the potter who throws thousands of pots being able to flick off something that works versus the first time potter who is as quick but tosses something lopsided and inelegant?