Longer Poems, Readers'/Editors' Expectations

I tend to write longer poems. It is not like I start with the intention of writing longer poems. But as I begin to go into the actual act of writing, it begins to get very tricky for me. I discover curves and loops within the words, within the characters' stories, and I need to explore those complexities. As such I have no problems with longer forms. In fact, I am drawn to this whole idea of novel-in-verse, and plan to write one someday myself. But longer forms pose two problems-- one, they are harder to workshop. Two, they are harder to send out to journals. Because, supposedly, all smaller poems should be able to stand alone. I sent out some of my Kiranmala poems. While my poems build up on the very familiar story outline of the Arun-Barun-Kiranmala stories, I don't expect my American readers/editors to know about them. So, the question is, do I have to write notes/introductory lines about Kiran for every poem I send out about her? I am tempted to say, not really. I am willing to add a couple of lines telling my readers where I am getting that story from. The thing is, no one would introduce me to the Bible stories in their poems, will they? There is this cultural expectation that I will come to their re-interpretation poems after reading Bible. The same is true for Greek mythology. That's why, when I write poems based on South Asian/Bengali mythology/lore, I expect my readers to do that work. I do tell them the name of the fairytale compilation where they can get the story most readily. But I don't want to do their work for them. The same is true for the editors of the journal. I know here I am showing a kind of artistic arrogance which no one expects from new writers and poets. There are days when I doubt that arrogance of mine. But I keep at it, because that's who I am. I would love to write an accompanying note/artistic statement explaining my take on Kiranmala if any of the journals ask me to do so. But I am not interested in being both the poet and the guidebook writer for my readers and editors.

About the workshopping part, I am less sure. Is it appropriate to impose on my readers too long a work? Besides, most of the beginning and intermediate writers who come to the workshops, are also learning to be readers. And here, I do have a distinct advantage over most of them, being a Phd candidate in Literature and what not. My graduate school years have succeeded to give me a kind of experience in critical reading of literature which I can't expect most people to have. But then, the question is, what to do? How to workshop my longer poems? If those are the only ones that I am writing?