Maybe this is why I have trouble with fiction. From Robert Kelly’s poem “Injune”:

An angel came to me today & told me that my proud dislike of narrative reveals an unwillingness to be accountable for my own actions. I contended that narrative is mostly just greediness for guilt. Storytellers fussily choose details. Let the selection be natural (I punned), let what happens happen. Let what happens reveal itself fully & truly in what happens next. If that were true (he smiled) I would need only one pair of wings.

Odd that this poem — one of my faves of Robert’s — could be said to be one of his most narrative-ish poems. My fave part of his book of selected poems’s the title: Redactions. Or Red Actions.

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