Lesson 4 - The Prose Poem as a Fish-hook as a Forest as a Needle-tip as a Painting as Shakespeare as a Grocery-list

5 More Variations of Prose Poems To Help You Build a Collection

Aug 07, 2024

Lesson 4 of 8 from Karan Kapoor’s Surrealist's Toolkit: Creating Beautiful Prose Poems from Everyday Madness.

In the last lesson, we explored five different types of prose poems, delving into various structures and styles to help you expand your poetic toolkit. This time, we will continue our exploration by examining five more types of prose poems, each offering a unique approach to blending narrative and lyrical elements. By experimenting with these diverse forms, you'll be able to develop a richer, more varied collection of prose poems. Let's dive into the next set of innovative structures and see how they can inspire your writing.

The Bait-and-Switch Prose Poem

As the title suggests, this form sets up an expectation and then subverts it, leading the reader in one direction before surprising them with an unexpected twist.

Here’s one of the finest, deceptively complex prose poem ever:

A Story about the Body by Robert Hass

The young composer, working that summer at an artist's colony, had watched her for a week. She was Japanese, a painter, almost sixty, and he thought he was in love with her. He loved her work, and her work was like the way she moved her body, used her hands, looked at him directly when she made amused and considered answers to his questions. One night, walking back from a concert, they came to her door and she turned to him and said, "I think you would like to have me. I would like that too, but I must tell you that I have had a double mastectomy," and when he didn't understand, "I've lost both my breasts." The radiance that he had carried around in his belly and chest cavity—like music—withered very quickly, and he made himself look at her when he said, "I'm sorry. I don't think I could." He walked back to his own cabin through the pines, and in the morning he found a small blue bowl on the porch outside his door. It looked to be full of rose petals, but he found when he picked it up that the rose petals were on top; the rest of the bowl—she must have swept them from the corners of her studio—was full of dead bees.

Let’s Unpack → The seemingly simple love story turns into a commentary on the complexities of desire, aging, and the human body. What begins as a straightforward narrative about a young composer’s infatuation with a Japanese painter ends with a bowl full of dead bees beneath rose petals left at his door the next morning. This unexpected gesture subverts the romantic expectation and forces the reader to confront deeper themes of rejection, mortality, and beauty in a patriarchal world. The poem deftly intertwines simplicity and profundity, leaving a lasting impact through its surprise ending.

The Bleeding Prose Poem

This type of prose poem transitions seamlessly between different themes, images, or stories, creating a flowing, interconnected piece. Let’s look at this magnificent Victoria Chang poem from her phenomenal collection on grief.

from Obit by Victoria Chang

Chair—my mother's green chair died on August 3, 2015. We arrange chairs in rows facing the same direction to represent reverence. In a circle to represent sharing. Stacked to represent completion. Hanging from the ceiling to represent art. In front of a desk to represent work. Before my mother died, I routed all her mail to my house. Her catalogues still come every day. I imagine her sitting in her chair flipping through them for more shirts that look the same. I understand now, only the living change clothes. Last week, I took my father pants-shopping. I heard him quarreling with the pants. He came out of the dressing room with his pants on backwards. Two pockets facing forward, like my mother's eyes mocking me, as if to say, I told you so. He was angry, pointing and cursing at the chairs that no longer fit. I entered the men's dressing room and picked up all the pants on the floor because one of them had to be my missing father.

Let’s Unpack → Don’t you just love the seamless transitions between different themes and images here? I think the reason is because the poem has a spine. Or better yet, we can think of it as the trunk of a poem. A poem can have as many branches, but if it doesn’t have a trunk the branches have nowhere to connect. This prose block begins with the literal death of a chair, symbolizing loss and grief right at the bat, then flows into a meditation on symbolic arrangements of chairs, connecting them to concepts like reverence, sharing, and completion. This metaphorical exploration is intertwined with poignant memories of the poet's deceased mother, whose daily routines and catalogs continue to haunt the living. The narrative then shifts to the poet’s father, illustrating the confusion and disorientation of aging and loss — that image of him wearing his pants backwards is so heartbreaking for me, it encapsulates a profound sense of absence and longing. Each line bleeds into the next, creating a cohesive narrative that captures the complexity of grief and memory, showing us how different aspects of life and loss are inextricably linked.

The Micro Prose Poem

Extremely brief, this prose poem distils language to its essence, often focusing on a single image or moment.

Myth by Ben Niespodziany

The billionaire becomes a balloon. The trillionaire is eaten on live tv. The weapon ends world hunger but also ends everyone without a certain type of ear. We escape unscathed. Who am I kidding? We're not saved. We're in the rubble. We're in the muffled chimney. This is only winning if you look at the stars.

Let’s Unpack → In just a few lines, Ben masterfully captures the absurdity and paradoxes of modern existence. The poem starts with surreal, almost whimsical transformations—billionaires turning into balloons and trillionaires being consumed—highlighting the extremes of wealth and power. It then swiftly shifts to a darker tone with the mention of a weapon that solves one problem by creating another, emphasizing the unintended consequences of technological advancements. The final line offers a poignant reflection on perspective, suggesting that hope and victory are often illusory, dependent on how we choose to view our circumstances. And we’re left to ponder the intricate balance between hope and despair.

The Play Prose Poem

Mimicking the structure of a play, this prose poem includes dialogue, stage directions, and scenes to convey its message.

Read → Savage Conversations by LeAnne Howe

In Savage Conversations, LeAnne Howe uses the structure of a verse drama to explore complex historical and emotional narratives. Set in the asylum where Mary Todd Lincoln was committed, the poem features characters like the First Lady, a “Savage Indian,” and a rope. The dialogues and stage directions create a vivid, haunting atmosphere that reflects on the brutal history of the Dakhóta people and Lincoln’s presidency. This structure blurs the lines between prose, poetry, and drama, allowing for a powerful interplay of voices, deepening the narrative and emotional impact.

Exercise → Create your own play prose poem by choosing a central theme or event. Set the scene with a brief description, like a stage direction. Write dialogue between two or more characters (make sure each voice is distinct). Include stage directions to describe actions, movements, or changes in the scene. Use this format to unfold your narrative, focusing on emotional and thematic consistency.

The List Poem as an Extension of the Prose Poem

This form uses a list structure to build its narrative or thematic content, often creating a cumulative effect. Written for yours truly, this poem below by Shannan Mann, a winner of the Love Eros Poetry Prize by Palette Poetry, is a perfect example of how to use list to build narrative and connect various threads to create a cumulative effect, much like the Bleeding prose poem.

from “Versions of the Undefinable Other” by Shannan Mann

Holding you is like holding water.
Krishna, in the Bhagavad-gita, defines kama as a fire that engulfs each of the body’s senses.
Ka: to desire
Ma: to create.
Last week, I walked across a bridge and stopped by a bundle of worms flowering in the grass after rain. They looked blue under the noon sun. Wind
whipped against the spirals on their shoestring bodies. I wondered if it is true
— if cutting a worm in half will create a new worm, a third creature, othered from the worm, from my hands — a spindle of summer ash blown out
like glass into the air.
To engulf is to destroy.
Thomas Aquinas revealed four ways to overcome lust. The fourth is
essentially to keep yourself busy.

Let’s Unpack → Read the full poem and see how using a series of seemingly disjointed but thematically connected items lead to a rich, layered narrative. Each entry on the list contributes a unique image or thought, weaving together emotions and philosophy. The repetition of motifs and the gradual accumulation of details lead to a profound cumulative effect, allowing us to experience the complexity of the themes being explored. The poem seamlessly integrates lyrical language with narrative elements, showcasing how lists can be used to explore depth and resonance in prose poetry.

Assignment 4

Once again, I urge you to try all of the above forms to write a prose poem. Focus on experimenting with the structure to see how it influences the content and style of your poem. Share your poem in the comments and provide feedback on each other’s work.

This exercise will help you explore different ways to approach prose poetry and expand your creative toolkit.

The Forever Workshop