Do You Write Poetry and Prose?
Do you write both poetry and prose? How do they influence each other?
Do you write poetry and prose?
When we write both prose and poetry, how do these different ways of writing inform each other?
Is poetry your first love? How does it inform your prose?
Is prose your primary style, but you sometimes write poetry? What do you notice in shifting forms?
Would love to have paragraph responses by women writers who write both prose and poetry, and from those responses, invite a couple of you to write a longer post on the topic.
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The books in the picture are Saved by a Poem by Kim Rosen, and Writing Down Your Soul by Janet Conner, both of them exquisite, inspiring and soulful books. Twitter: @SavedbyaPoem and @JanetConner.
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Anora McGaha is the editor of the online magazine Women Writers, Women Books.
Follow WomenWriters on Twitter. Like Women.Writers.Women.Books on Facebook.
Visit Anora’s website. Follow anorawrites on Twitter and Anora McGaha on Facebook.
Anora writes non-fiction for business and creatively, and also writes poetry. Her personal non-fiction essays have been published in three anthologies, and her first book is Social Media for Business with co-author Martin Brossman. Her second book is forthcoming, Notes from a Life: Poetry and Prose.
Category: On Writing, Women Writing Poetry
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Poetry is a form you can hide your feelings after being expressed & some things really need to concealed after being expressed..
Prose is a form with complete detail not get time to understand,, we need only to swallow it..
Anyway we’ll get bored soon. It’s really good to write in both form to get back to a perfect pitch..
I mainly write prose. I am just finishing the second draft of my first novel. It is autobiographical fiction (emphasis on fiction). It is, in parts, bleak, gritty, painful. Some of my short stories are happy tales but the myriad ways in which we can feel the pain of existence shows through in a number of others. It’s just what I write, right now. My poetry is nothing like my prose; my poems are highly silly things, setting free the clown in me. I mean clown in a positive sense – think Pam Ayres or Spike Milligan. Poems such as ‘The Jelly of Damocles’ or ‘Ode to a Grouch’ are written for my own amusement, to look back on events or feelings and belly laugh.
I think that my writing has to take this stark and absolute form right now, until I have this first novel finished and I feel that my poetry balances out these raw and difficult emotions stemming from my current prose. I think the poems are a form of self therapy, so that even when my prose presses down on me, the poems have me floating upwards again.
All of this might well be a transitory stage of writing. My poems could develop sadness, my stories absurdity. I might write sci-fi or horrow or romance – who knows? For now I have these two hugely distinct aspects to my writing. Writing harasses me constantly. The poems pop up far less frequently. I love both equally.
I had a student ask me why I wrote in both forms. He was in a fiction class, and he didn’t think there was any reason to write poetry when you could write a story. I tried to explain the nuances of form, and how they affect the reader, without much luck until I compared it to something visual: a poem is a photograph, a novel is a movie.
Writing in both poetry and prose allows me to decide the lens through which I express myself. Sometimes it’s a snapshot I need, that specific moment in time that I want to document. Other times, it’s another beast entirely. Poetry makes me focus on the minute, amd fiction writing demands breadth. It’s a balancing act, really.
Fiction was my first love. I came to poetry later, specifically in a graduate workshop. There were five of us, and the incredible George McWhirter was the professor. I’d find his blue notes all across my poems–‘This image here’, ‘Dig deeper’–and I’d stare at them, and the poem, until I saw what he saw. The breathless clarity of a single, right image. The punch to the heart. I fell in love with poetry, then. Hard.
Poetry and prose overlap for me. Prose helps me to recognize and reveal the narrative in poetry. Poetry makes me more aware of language, imagery and rhythm in prose. I can’t imagine one without the other.
I started out writing poetry. For years I didn’t write prose unless it was a school assignment. But I always loved storytelling, and over time started writing down my stories, and started writing less and less poetry. Now I hardly ever write poetry but always have at least 3 prose pieces in various stages of development.
I don’t know what influence my prose will have on my poetry, if and when I start writing verse again. But I can clearly see the impact poetry had on my prose. I remember reading somewhere, “In poetry, the wrong word can kill you.” Yes, completely. I would agonize for hours over word choice, flow, structure.
I don’t give my prose the same attention to detail – if nothing else, spending hours on each sentence would mean I never finished anything! But poetry taught me how beautiful language can be. How it flows, has rhythm, movement, voice. It taught me that sometimes grammar needs to be set aside so meaning can shine.
And now my prose writing, my best prose writing, takes on some of that feeling. The words flow, or chop, or scatter to fit the mood and scene. I notice it most often in my short/flash fiction, but it comes out in my longer fiction too. In my novel, the climax has a section that if it were stand-alone I’d call a prose poem, though the prose aspect was strengthened in the revisions.
Within the spectrum of writing, most writers choose a narrow bandwidth. It is easy to determine the difference between the novel and the sonnet. But as with blue and indigo, there is a place where prose and poetry cross over and it is difficult to see the gradations within. That ‘liminal’ area is my field. I like writing ‘short stuff,’ not because I am lazy; it takes more effort to use fewer words, but because I prefer density of expression. To write ‘Drabble,’ a story of one hundred words, succinct grammar and syntax are as important as in short poetry. You cannot afford the luxury of description or repetition unless they serve the narrative. Yet a metaphor, a well placed pause, a little alliteration, can go a long way in flash fiction and some small detail, a word or two, can fill in a lot of back-story. A story need not be linear but it must be narrative. It must have a beginning, middle and end: whereas Poetry can be narrative, but that is not its primary function. As an editor I feel sometimes despondent when I read a poetry submission that is clearly chopped up prose; flawless sentences, line breaks given no thought, often no use of any poetic strategy. When I began writing flash fiction I quite often ended up with a cameo, not a story and now when I reread some of my work, I see it as more poetry than prose so I can forgive the inexperienced writer and would-be poet their trespasses but these days I am more careful as to intent. And therein, I think lies the key. Whatever we write, we write to convey meaning. How we do that is determined by intent. What a story does is to tell a story. There may be underlying messages and philosophies and beautiful language within it, but the story is the thing. In a poem you can use language and syntax differently and rhythm and rhyme to contribute to the message so that the poem works as a unity and speaks more directly to, “the heart in hiding.” Perhaps form may disclose intent and the poem is much more about language.
“The achieve of; the mastery of the thing!”
(The Windhover; Gerard Manley Hopkins 1918)
Poetry was always my first love. I’ve written it since I was a child and honestly believe you can see a little girl grow up into a young woman when you read through them all.
Writing poetry has made everything else I write quite lyrical. Prose is something I want to do and work hard to do. Poetry is something that comes very naturally, like turning to an old friend.
Prose is my first love, my high-school sweetheart, my marriage. Prose is stable and something that keeps me safe, if that makes sense. I am a master writer but I know what I’m doing and I know how to get better, what to strive for, what the goals are. I can write prose every day, I can force it without killing or even hurting it.
Poetry is different for me. It’s the rare moment of sudden inspiration. I write poetry only when it comes to me, usually through one central idea or metaphor and often, months pass before I write another poem, but the few that I have written in the last years mean a lot to me, express something rather fundamental about who I am in a way that prose can’t.
I can’t believe I wrote “I am a master writer” in that post. It’s my best friends favourite joke about me – that I am so incapable of saying no or not, it’s the word I constantly forget to type and it happens to be the one word that can change the content of anything. *shakes head*
I love poetry and the power of emotion that it contains in itself. I mostly am comfortable with prose but ever so often I indulge in poetry because I feel it informs my need to not use too many words. It reminds me that crisp, better vocab are needed for good writing. For in poetry, you can’t be flabby. 🙂 So I keep a book of poetry to inspire my prose writing. It seems they are a good mix 🙂
So funny, yesterday I wrote briefly about exactly this on my blog http://onwishesandhorses.wordpress.com/2013/09/12/a-tiny-meditation-on-poetry-and-prose/
I notice now that I made both proper nouns,as if Poetry and Prose are both people, from the same family even… For me, poetry was what I did first, or maybe what I was given positive feedback for first – they are so intertwined from childhood that I can’t even remember. I know them both, well, but they make different demands. For me a poem is one picture to get lost in, prose is the whole gallery. As a writer I love the structure of a poem, especially when I am lost in the world. I love distilling a moment, a feeling, an observation into something on the page where every word does a job beyond that which it might where there were more words to spare.
Poetry arrives in my ear, prose unfurls under my eye. Poetry has to sound right, prose must read well on the page. Poetry must read well too, but for me, at its best, it is a rhythmic vision that resonates at a soul level. I don’t believe I achieve this, but I devour the poets that do. Prose leaves me with something to think about, both in the writing and reading. Poetry enraptures me through shared experience.
I switch between the forms based on what it is that I am trying to express – feelings, snapshot moments tend to go into poetry. The main problem I find, is when I find myself in a poetry writing process for prose which means I can take a week to write a paragraph. I also find poetry editing more of a painful process than prose. I’ve done a post about that before too!
Anyway, that got long!
Wonderful! Poetry is one image to get lost in, you say, prose is a gallery. – Anora McGaha
I’ve always written both poetry and prose. For me, they are two side to the coin. Some narratives are better suited for prose, and some need the brevity of poetry.
In the past, I wrote a poem about a family story that became a short story and then a novel. Some stories don’t let go, and in this way–working in both poetry and prose–I can spend time with these stories, experimenting with format and genre and structure in a really satusting way.
Fascinating. What are the names of these three works, and are they published? And where?
Specifically, the poems in my first poetry collection, Natural Disasters (Palimpsest Press) informed my first novel, When She Was Electric (Raincoast Books).
Some of the poems in my second collection, Away (Signature Editions) were early ruminations on the research that became my next novel, Beyond the Blue (Random House).
All published in Canada, When She Was Electric and Beyond the Blue also available in the US.
My main form is prose (speculative fiction) but I occasionally write poetry, and actually, over the past 2 days have written 2 poems! I turn to poetry when I need to express something that may not make sense, something surreal or personal. I tend to be more self-indulgent in poetry and allow myself the pleasure of language, whereas in prose I constantly field feedback that tells me to wind my language back. I love words and language so poetry fulfils a deep creative urge, where I can be vague and yet precise at the same time. And it’s definitely influenced the feel of some of my sentences when writing prose.
Poetry and prose are something that wander hand-in-hand to me. While trying to discover my voice in writing, I focused on prose. Fiction. A formulaic short story selection with all the necessary elements. With what I thought people wanted to read, only to be perplexed in workshops when my stories were praised for wording and critiqued for plot and style.
That is when I discovered flash fiction. I began to read it obsessively, taking in every word, which drove the plot forward. Every “the” and “at” was there for a specific purpose and the prose seemed to rock as I read. It was poetry in prose form, but with a plot. They had been melted together.
I dabble in poetry after studying contemporary writers and pouring over volumes, though I am still not convinced I have gone deep enough into my mind to select the words needed to construct such verses. And I am also working on a novel, though some paragraphs have the same rocking feeling as flash fiction, concentrated on images and feelings instead of action. But for me, my home is flash fiction and the emotion it allows a writer to pour onto the page, a perfect mesh of both prose and poetry.
Janice, Thanks for bringing flash fiction into the discussion. Nice characterization of it – “It was poetry in prose form, but with a plot.”
Reading these comments reminded me of a very powerful moment I had as a corporate writer, in 1996, when two people were challenging the title I chose for a newsletter article aimed at senior managers.
As a poet I weigh the sound and rhythms of my prose sentences, can’t help it unless I have no time. With most titles I choose, I’ve weighed the words over and over, testing and trying them, to see if they hold up.
The title change they were suggesting took out the precision and the rhythm of the title. Usually I had to just swallow hard and let go, but this time something got past my censor:
“I am a poet and I am very attuned to the sound, images and rhythms of words. You can change it to whatever you want, but I’m telling you, what you’re suggesting isn’t as powerful at grabbing and holding attention.”
It took my breath away, might have been the first time I’d owned my poet identity out of college, where it’s safe to be anything you want to be. Cat was out of the bag.
Being a poet isn’t something that’s considered an asset in most corporate settings, so it was a long shot for winning my point. And, they still went with their change. – Anora
I write poetry and prose – and think they inform each other. The precision and music of poetry helps me hear if a prose sentence works, and prose – occasionally – throws up a subject that is more comfortably contained in poetry. I can give an example: when I was in Cambodia I met a tuk tuk driver who had survived the Khmer Rouge, and he told me his story. I promised to tell others, but found it simply too harrowing to write in prose – somehow the horrors fell out of the paragraphs and became impossible to write. But I could hold it together in a poem – entitled The Unbearable Rightness of Being.
Jo – How beautifully put: “The precision and music of poetry helps me hear if a prose sentence works, and prose – occasionally – throws up aasubject that is more comfortably contained in poetry.” Love the title of your poem. Not sure I’d have the courage to read it though.
@JaneRusbridge and @@AbiBurlingham were talking about how poets can be helpful in workshopping prose and in prose workshops.
– Anora
Just caught up with this (how tardy of me!).
If you’re feeling brave, Anora, I blogged the poem here:
http://gapyearsthebook.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/poem-from-cambodia.html
What a fantastic, thought provoking question. When I started writing, at a very young age, it was poetry that I was drawn to and found myself writing. I now write many things and have had 5 children’s books published, and 2 poems due to be published. I always find myself coming back to writing poetry in the spaces in between the longer things. I find it hard to differentiate between writing the different genres – the result is different, the process is different, but the ideas, the words, the rhythms, often come from the same place. Some become moments or scenes in a longer story, some become the kernal of a picture book, and others become poems. I do find that having written poetry for so many years though has made all my writing quite lyrical. The musicality of words is something that I think comes across in a lot of my writing. This is a fascinating subject and I’m sure there’ll be so many responses to it.
“having written poetry for so many years [ ] has made all my writing quite lyrical”
This is one of the angels I was hoping to hear about. Thank you Abi.
I first started writing short stories, then poetry became my main focus for around 2 years… Now I’m once again writing fiction, with a dose of poetry on the side.
Poetry, I believe, is a clearer yet more vague expression of the self. You can reflect something of life in the mirror of words without stating exactly what you’re talking about (just communicating the feeling, illustrating the mental aspects of something). In addition, as aforementioned (thanks, @sarah!), it is a way to be creative anywhere, anytime. 3 sentences of poetry scribbled on a napkin at lunch is better than not writing all day. Therefore, writing poetry greatly influences how you write prose – your style, [indirect] rhythm, creativity, vocabulary, etc.
Between prose and poetry, I personally notice that I wax philosophical, more creative, more elaborate, when writing poetry. This carries over into my prose by keeping a stream of creativity flowing through even the ravines of the writing process. Poetry is an escape, a place to “fill up my cup,” while writing is a passion. They complement each other perfectly.
Thanks for the questions!
Andraya, thanks for your comment. I enjoyed reading your thoughts. I liked how you said that what happens when you write poetry carries over into your prose, “by keeping a stream of creativity flowing through even the ravines of the writing process.” – Anora
When I find myself unsure where to go next with a short story, novel or essay, I know I can always turn to poetry to help beckon my personal muse.
For me, poetry can be an exercise in form, a flash journal for a given moment, or a pen and ink therapist for emotions that need untangling. It’s always mystic fuel for my creative engine.
While I consciously concentrate on each line of poetry, my subconscious is usually at work solving the puzzle of my prose. And eventually I not only have a rough poem, but I may also have a solution to the original stall in my prose writing. And two for the effort of one is always a great bargain.
Nicely captured Kerry. “an exercise in form, a flash journal for a given moment, or a pen and ink therapist for emotions that need untangling.” The concept of “mystic fuel” is exciting.
I write both poetry and prose. I’ve worked as a non-fiction writer, published two volumes of poetry, and am currently working on both a prose novel and a poem novel.
I’ve always tended towards a lyrical style of writing, so when my prose kept getting bogged down by the wearying process, and stalled by my busy life, I tried poetry and found it well suited not only my current time restrictions but also my writing style. (I can write a poem anywhere, but maintaining a creative flow for a long prose piece is hard.)
Years of working on prose and non-fiction gave me good foundational skills which allowed me to meet the requirements of poetry – word economy, strength of expression, managing viewpoints, manipulating the meaning of words, etc, which are important for both genres but especially so with poetry.
And now that I’ve been writing poetry for a few years, it teaches me to relax more with my prose works. I have more fun with them now. My sentences are lighter, looser, without abandoning depth or meaning. So I would say that prose taught me to master language and the fundamentals of writing, and poetry taught me to go beyond that and find joy in the process.
My apologies for such a long response! It was a very interesting question 🙂
Thanks for highlighting that our fast paced lifestyles make shorter writing forms a better fit. Also liked how you listed the requirements of poetry.
Curious about your saying that poetry teaches you to relax more with prose. How so I wonder. – Anora