704 Prose Poetry: Literature’s Bratty Lovechild (ENGLISH)

Perhaps you’re a staunch fiction writer, or a nonfiction writer, and poetry was ‘never your thing’ — it seemed too intimidating, too niche, too esoteric. Or maybe you’re ‘poetry curious’ but have no idea where or how to begin. This is your moment to branch out in an encounter with that “bratty lovechild” of literature, the prose poem. As Peggy Shumaker has said, “Many people say (foolishly of course) that they ‘don’t like poetry’ but I’ve never heard anyone say they don’t like paragraphs. It would be disliking five minute increments on the clock.” With this in mind, you are invited to discover the small, wild geography of the prose poem and the delights it has in store for you in this workshop on a hybrid genre that beguiles, packs a punch, has the intensity and lyricism of poetry the narrative thrust of flash fiction. Embrace surreality, sensuality, and humour through this suprising form, discover what makes it unique and what it can accomplish on the page through the manipulation of patterns, energy, tension, narrative, imagery, parataxis, and unexpected subjects. Make the mundane magical in no more than a paragraph, and come out of workshop with a handful of prose poem drafts.

Instructor

Catherine Black