life inside the lyric

The narrative in a lyric poem is the poet’s life instilled up to that point.

narrative explained

A narrative poem carries a story however unconventionally it’s told.

depleted lines

Long poems that aren’t narratives deplete themselves line by line.

trace story

In the briefest lyric there’s the hint of narrative.

no retelling

Tell me a story I’ll never be able to retell as well.

nonce upon a time

Poems that are half-told tales, interrupted narratives, improbable parables, or stories that lose their way.

against self rule

Resist the tyranny of personal narrative.

revising aristotle

The poem’s drama was in its usage and not in its narrative elements.

cross purposes

When the narrative intersects with the random.

no narrative plan

Even narrative poets have an aversion to plot.

stream of story and theme

The same stories and themes follow us because we as a society are constantly breaking camp and moving on.

unnecessary information

Always the temptation of more than enough information in a poem that tells a story.

thrown together text

A long poem without a discernible organizing principle, without narrative or without a recurring theme, and comprised of discrete and easily separable sections that could be reordered without diminishment to the whole, is not a long poem.

drama within narrative

Narrative subsumes drama; the story told in scenes, characters, and voices.

memoir broken into lines

Apparently you believe your narrative history merits my attention, but I come to poetry for more than memoir broken into lines.

make something of yourself

Why do so many poets interpret the charge ‘Write what you know’ as ‘Tell me your life story’? ‘Writing’ is not telling. And to ‘know’ involves more than one’s experience.

narrative coming through

Certain stories are instant poetry: The words must simply get out of the way of the telling.

brief compass

Just as two poems don’t make a single narrative (at best they are related by links between characters or similar elements), so two or more poems don’t make a narrative or formal structure (except as one poem requires another to complete it). The poet’s ambition should be satisfied—as mine in is this collection [Lavorare stanca]—if each poem, in its own brief compass, manages to create a structure of its own.

—Cesare Pavese, “The Poet’s Craft”
Hard Labor, translated by Wm. Arrowsmith (Johns Hopkins U. Press, 1979)

storied song

A lyric clad in narrative.

good story

A good story can't be told badly.