11-24-2012, 06:42 AM
I did some very bad things years ago. I made a few essays that I called 'essay poems', and I made a poem in the form of a document-report file about aliens. Not only that, in one of my essay poems, I discussed things that I called 'literal metaphors'. I like to write poetry in praxis, poetry that is like a code you type into a computer or a virus or a ritual or a foolish dance of drunkenness that makes me or somebody feel and think things instead of losing the will to live or settling for nothing. If somebody puts a lot of effort into writing a poem in prose, and someone says, "that is impossible! you can't write a poem in prose! that's an oxymoron!" I'd say, maybe I'm a moron, and I wrote an 'oxymoronic poem'. I was told once, "Your poem is very prosey, and therefore dull." I said that was my intention, the prose feel, and they said that my intention isn't important. And I agreed. You don't have to work very hard to offend a reader, you don't even have to have the intention to offend them.
Poetry is more than words. It's more than techniques, it's more than form. It is the process. And a poem is a moment of the process. There are rules and arguments about the rules for the sake of continuing this process, because without rules, you would be free to do nothing. And I boldly make the obvious statement that: to be a poet you have to do something. And to do something, you have to have things that you're not doing. And so when Leanne says that she doesn't accept such a thing as "prose poetry", she gives me the choice to say I do agree with her, or I do accept such a thing as "prose poetry". I've read prose poems, and I've made prose poems. The fact that an intelligent person versed in the rules of poetry exists that tells me that I can't write a prose poem makes writing prose poems more challenging, more intense, and more enjoyable.
Poetry is more than words. It's more than techniques, it's more than form. It is the process. And a poem is a moment of the process. There are rules and arguments about the rules for the sake of continuing this process, because without rules, you would be free to do nothing. And I boldly make the obvious statement that: to be a poet you have to do something. And to do something, you have to have things that you're not doing. And so when Leanne says that she doesn't accept such a thing as "prose poetry", she gives me the choice to say I do agree with her, or I do accept such a thing as "prose poetry". I've read prose poems, and I've made prose poems. The fact that an intelligent person versed in the rules of poetry exists that tells me that I can't write a prose poem makes writing prose poems more challenging, more intense, and more enjoyable.