Douglas Barbour wrote:
>
> How exactly does 'narrative' work in some modern poems? As in many modern novels, sometimes by extreme indirection: cf Michael Ondaatje's THE COLLECTED WORKS OF BILLY THE KID. Or where does narrative 'dwell' in
bpNichol's THE MARTYROLOGY? Robert Kroetsch argues: 'A method, then, and
then, and then, of composition; against the 'and then' of story. . . .
[the story as fragment _becomes_ the long poem: the story becomes its
own narrative; i,e., our interest is in, not story, but the _act_ of
telling the story'.
>
> or:
>
> 'Perhaps we tell a blurred story because the story is blurred.'
>
> Or there are 'serial poems' -- defined by Robin Blaser as 'a particular kind of narrative--what Jack Spicer and I agreed to call in our own work the serial poem--this is a narrative which refuses to adopt an imposed story line, and completes itself only in the sequence of poems, if, in fact, a reader insists upon a definition of completion which is separate from the activity of the poems themselves.'
>
> These 'turns' of/on narrative are what most interest me...
>
> Douglas Barbour
I have to say that "Perhaps we tell a blurred story because the story is
blurred" strikes me as the old "fallacy of imitative form." Perhaps it
is not immediately recognizable because an entire style, rather than one
work, is being excused; and because "we" (modern literary intellectuals)
like to feel that "our" stories are especially "blurred" - riddled with
ambiguities, spawning aporia that we alone are smart enough to grasp.
Reality is always quite clear to the person it hurts most - who by
definition cannot speak or cannot be heard. The story is out there,
coherent, and waiting to be told. The blur is in us, and will
eventually be seen as part of the story. Meanwhile, a cultivated
confusion is a sign of leisure. In saying this I don't mean to wrap my
own work in what may be called the fallacy of political correctness:
that because one's sentiments are radical, one's work necessarily is.
Some years ago, when I was beginning to work in narrative, I read
Michael Andre Bernstein's The Tale of the Tribe. This book remains an
excellent study of modern non-epic - the Cantos, Paterson, the Maximus
Poems. What struck me, however, was the moment in the first chapter
where Bernstein says that Pound, Williams and Olson all assumed the
irrelevance, the impossibility of traditional consecutive narrative as a
contemporary epic style. He says this in passing, for he agrees with
them. The point is simply obvious, a given. And the question that for
me was most interesting was never discussed.
I quite respect Spicer's ideas and like his poetry - and, for that
matter, Robin Blaser's. I've only glanced at Nichols' Martyrology,
found it tedious, doubted it was worth the trouble; would be willing to
look again. My own recent work consists largely of lyrics and variously
splintered narratives and, stylistically, is in the experimentalist
mainstream. The point here, however, is this: we should not casually
assume that a style we find congenial is historically necessary.
Some discussion of these issues, and a set of simple and elegant rules
for composing narrative poetry, are in The Reaper Essays by McDowell and
Jarman, Story Line Press.
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