Tuesday, March 27, 2007

To prose or not to prose

I'm working on this poem that I want to be a prose poem, but I think it's asking for line breaks. I'm kind of sad about it. Maybe I'm just not meant to write prose poems. Or maybe I just don't understand what a prose poem is. I've been reading and rereading Simone's "Orange Girls" and Mary's "Milfoil & Afterthought." I need to find some more. It seems like they (prose poems) are everywhere until I'm actually wanting to read them, and then I can't find them anywhere.

Also, I'm struggling with the lies...I mean, the fictionalizing of personal experience. Trying to not be tied to "but that's how it happened." In this particular poem/story/memory, the truth of it is as bizarre as anything I could make up, but I still don't want to get stuck in reality or chronology, yet when I throw in something purely fictional, I feel like it doesn't fit. I wonder if I will ever be able to break away from "truth" in my poems.

3 comments:

Justin Evans said...

Sara:

Remember, the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.

marybid said...

Do you have Midlife Crisis with Dick and Jane by Nin Andrews? Give me a holler if you want to borrow it. I freaking love that book.

Sara said...

Update: I think it's going to remain prose, but I didn't manage to lie much.

Mary, I haven't read Midlife Crisis, but I've heard bits. I'd love to borrow it. (Add it to the huge pile of your books I already have!)