Prose Poems

I had a great crash course in prose poetry tonight in class. I'd wondered for the longest time what is the distinction between a prose poem and a piece of micro-fiction .

Here are some distinctions my classmates offered:

• -Prose poems are tighter and less elliptical
• -Their emphasis is less on the details of the poem and more on the leaps between ideas we don't see on the page
• -They avoid the emphasis of certain images line breaks create
• -They serve as vehicles for unwritten tenors
• -They provide a form in which the poet can juxtapose different ideas that work to elucidate on a bigger idea

For a prose poem to work, it must:

• -Be driven by metaphor
• -Have rhythmical language
• -Speak to a larger concern
• -Have movement from individual to universal meaning

Now, I don't pretend to boil poetry writing down to a check list of rules one must abide by. Art is not that formulaic. For me, though, these guidelines help make sense of the distinction between poetic language and descriptive language. Also, they give me a way of writing effective prose poetry (something I'm dying to try).

Here's an example of a prose poem by Gary Young we discussed tonight that I just loved:

When I was five, I knew God had made the world and everything in it. I know God loved me, and I knew the dead were in heaven with God always. I had a sweater. I draped it on a fence, and when I turned to pick it up a minute later, it was gone. That was the first time I had lost anything I really loved. I walked in circles, too frightened to cry, searching for it until dark. i knew my sweater was not in heaven, but it could disappear, just vanish without reason, then I could disappear and God might lose me, not matter how good I was, now matter how much I was loved. The buttons on my sweater were translucent shimmering, pale opalescence. It was yellow.

The sense of loss in this poem, and the unknowing of things the poet once knew is quite stunning. I appreciate the lost sweater as a metaphor for a God who may not be so benevolent as we have been taught. I think, as my teacher recommended, Young's poem works well with Robert Frost's "Design":

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth -- Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth -- A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite. What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to appall?-- If design govern in a thing so small.

Maybe one day I'll teach these poems together as an example of the different forms poets use to get at similar ideas.

I think I'm going to play around with writing a prose poem for next week's poetry workshop. Let's see how that goes.