Joanne - I had three pieces of prose in my last book (_Pushing at Silence_,
SALT 1996): two were prose poems, and one was a short short story, about
800 words. The story fitted perfectly between two poems about my parents.
But reviewers called the story a 'prose poem', whereas it was distinctly
different than the other prose pieces. The prose poems were different to
the story in that they used imagistic language, and the cadence of the
sentences was carefully crafted (like a solo in music). Instead of the line
being the unit they were constructed by, the sentence took this role. And
the space between two paragraphs also played a part in the score of the
prose poem - a held upbeat rushing into the sound of the second half.
I enjoy writing prose poems, and reading them. There is a prose poem site
on the Net somewhere, where they have an interview with Bly about the form.
And there was an anthology about two decades back called simply THE PROSE
POEM (if my memory serves me well), edited by Michael Benedikt (spl?).
Sorry for this half information, but others members may be able to fill in
the gaps ...
Regards t'all -
Andrew
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Andrew Burke Copywriting
[log in to unmask] Creative Writing
http://www.bam.com.au/andrew/ Editing
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