10-09-2025, 09:00 PM
Prose poems don't have to recall anything. One thing they do recall, since they have so often been written this way, is a symbolic magical realism that's playful and deadpan.
The prose or plain language is dry and conversational, while the poetry part is working in a subtle way that leans toward the surreal without being so.
There's a literal bone of prose, a figurative bone of poetry, a bone as symbol that can function through the liminal creature that's a prose poem.
You can throw traditions out and do what you want. You can also engage with traditional uses of forms and other things to layer and mark meanings and tones that aren't explicit.
And even if you aren't doing that on purpose, you're writing with knowledge of language and poetry, so you're going to stumble into things despite your conscious intentions.
The prose or plain language is dry and conversational, while the poetry part is working in a subtle way that leans toward the surreal without being so.
There's a literal bone of prose, a figurative bone of poetry, a bone as symbol that can function through the liminal creature that's a prose poem.
You can throw traditions out and do what you want. You can also engage with traditional uses of forms and other things to layer and mark meanings and tones that aren't explicit.
And even if you aren't doing that on purpose, you're writing with knowledge of language and poetry, so you're going to stumble into things despite your conscious intentions.