The Prose Poem

The prose poem.  This creative writing class is teaching me not how to write different genres but how I myself have always written.  In introducing the genre of the prose poem, our teacher explained that it was a combination between prose and poetry.  It is written and read like prose, but leaves the reader feeling as though it was a poem.  In and of itself, that explanation does not seem to make terribly much sense.  But in thinking about it and reading examples, suddenly everything clicks and makes perfect sense.  Or maybe that's just me.

Every quality blog post I write is a prose poem.  Or a combination of several on related topics.  It has no plot, but it tells a story.  It is written in sentences, but reads like verses.  And most of the people in the class just looked at each other and whispered "what is her obsession with this?  I don't even get what it is."  But no, I wasn't one of them.  The prose poem makes perfect sense to me.  It's how I naturally write.  It's ideas around a central theme but ones that don't necessarily unfold around a timeline of events. 

This genre characterizes how I generally write.  I like the rigidity and fluidity of sentences.  The ability to insert adjectives and fillers without concerning oneself with meter or rhythm or length appeals to me.  It makes me happy to not have to worry about style or format or rules.  And in being the cross-bred bastard genre that the prose poem is, it satisfies my requirement of few to no rules precisely because it also lets me be as loose and plot-less as any poem.

I write naturally in a defined genre.  More than that, a bastard genre.  I'm not sure why, but it's odd for me to think that the majority of my "pretty" writing can be so cleanly classified.  Whatever works, I guess.  In any case, this being my natural writing style, it's easy for me to write in this portion of the class.  Which I'm certainly not objecting to, given that I have enough on my mind otherwise.