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Okay, so a thread about prose poetry and the most common mistake people make when they're first exploring working in the genre.
First, prose poetry is nebulous and ill-defined. In a way, all sorts of writing can fall under the umbrella of "prose poetry", and we have ... /1
First, prose poetry is nebulous and ill-defined. In a way, all sorts of writing can fall under the umbrella of "prose poetry", and we have ... /1
numerous examples of prose poetry employing different methods and taking different forms. Prose poems can be narrative or lyric or academic in tone. They can have a tone/style that is outside of those three specific genres. They can be hybrid works or experimental. ... /2
I have seen every different kind of prose poem "work" and be successful as a piece of writing. But the element of a prose poem that is most often responsible for derailing the work from being a successful piece of prose poetry is nearly always a near-indistinguishable ... /3
emphasis on fiction-craft narrative. I mean the action and the desire to construct a kind of coherent story that has a beginning, middle, and end. Prose poems are primarily defined by what they are not: not fiction, not poetry, not personal essay. Their power comes from ... /4
subverting the limitations and conceits of forms like "fiction" and "poetry". So when a prose poem ends up reading like a story where the audience are concerned about rote actions, it loses access to the very things that make it interesting and worthwhile: that it is ... /5
NOT fiction; NOT lineated poetry; NOT a personal essay, etc..
So what do I suggest? Well, action is a great way to pin down a prose poem and give it weight. But it has to be used sparingly. Here we have a fiction mechanic, described action, which is treated mechanically ... /6
So what do I suggest? Well, action is a great way to pin down a prose poem and give it weight. But it has to be used sparingly. Here we have a fiction mechanic, described action, which is treated mechanically ... /6
in a similar way to how we might approach language in poetry (restraint, economy, etc.). Concretely, in a prose poem try limiting the described action to 1-3 incidents. Use the lessons of poetry to orbit a lynchpin of fiction: narrative. Maybe a prose poem centers (or is ... /7
centered by) a narrative action, or an action and that action's resolution (2 incidents of described action). You can pull this off with increased frequency, even, the more the described action resists becoming mechanical instead of lyrical.
Now, IMPORTANTLY, rules are ... /8
Now, IMPORTANTLY, rules are ... /8
meant to be broken, and you can write a whole prose poem full of actions, or with a beginning-middle-end structure or whatever and they can WORK. But you have to really understand how to subvert the way the technique is used in fiction in order to make it work in prose poetry. /9
This is just one way to approach a prose poem, but one that I think would benefit a lot of people who I have seen trying out this new-to-them form. Ruminate and consider around the action. Allow action to spark into something else—something you wouldn't always see in a story. /10
