301 Prose Poetry: Literature’s Bratty Lovechild (SPANISH)

Maybe you’re a committed fiction writer, or a nonfiction writer, and poetry was just ‘never your thing.’ It seemed too intimidating, too niche, too esoteric. Or maybe you’re curious about poetry, but have no idea where or how to start. This is your moment to expand into an encounter with that loving and rebellious child of literature: the prose poem. As Peggy Shumaker has said: “A lot of 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 like not liking 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 for this is a hybrid genre that captivates and impacts by compining the intensity and lyricism of poetry with the narrative drive of flash fiction. Embrace surrealism, sensuality, and humor through this surprising form; discover what makes it unique and what it can achieve on the page by manipulating patterns, energy, tension, narrative, imagery, parataxis, and unexpected themes. Make the mundane magical in no more than one paragraph, and leave the workshop with a handful of prose poem drafts.

Instructor

Catherine Black