Talking Shop: The Prose Poem

Almost no creative-writing form is more “en vogue” right now than the prose poem. And why not? The prose poem is a tantalizing, versatile format that combines (ideally) the lyricism and conventions of poetry and applies them to a format that best resembles prose on the page.

There are no line breaks, rhyme, or strict meter involved; just paragraphs on a page.

It seems that the literati have flocked to this medium..and rightfully so! There is endless potential to utilize new rhetorical and artistic tricks with the relatively new format. 

Still, the form is not without its dangers. 

I’ve noticed an increasing trend toward “bad” prose poems. As of late. I suppose with the invention of any new form, it can be expected that writers will abuse it on a long enough timeline. The problem with bad prose poems–and there are truly some horrendous ones out there–all stem from a writer’s misunderstanding of what the prose poem’s purpose is.

Maybe it’s easiest to start by definition by negation. I can pretty quickly compile a short list of what prose poems aren’t or at least shouldn’t be:

1. Prose poems aren’t an easy excuse to avoid line breaks. Some poets eschew fixed forms in favor of free-verse just because they don’t want to be bothered with learning meter and scansion. Similarly, some writers take an undisciplined approach with prose poems–choosing the form simply because they don’t want to put any thought or work into how a poem should be broken up. What’s easier? Learning the power of enjambment, intentional ambiguity, and double-meanings through line breaks–seeing them as a poetic device in and of themselves, or just slopping the words onto the page in neat little paragraphs? Obviously, the latter. But just as free-verse doesn’t mean a poem is allowed to be without meter and rhythm, so a prose-poem must have intentional thought “baked in.”

2. Prose poems aren’t flowery sounding prose passages. Sprinkling a little alteration atop a narrative description does not a prose poem make. Too often, writers fall in love with a short prose-y passage they write, and rather than fleshing it out into a full short story or poem, they slap the moniker of “prose poem” on top and call it good. A prose poem needs to be able to stand on its own two feet. It must “work” as a creative writing piece unto itself.

3. Prose poems aren’t a novelty for the sake of novelty. This is, perhaps, the most important of the three, and it’s the heart of what I’m getting at with my previous two points, anyways. “Form follows function,” as the popular architectural maxim states. Which is to say, a prose poems format should serve the content of the poem. It should somehow make it better. The format of “prose poem” is just one piece of the writing that must work with all the rest to create the intended effect in the reader.

A few examples of how this can work come to mind:

1. Some prose wants to be poetry and some poetry wants to be prose. A prose poem operates in that margin, creating tension. Conversely,  as a former classmate once pointed out to me, some pieces seem to have “dual citizenship” in multiple formats (a prose poem can simultaneously be creative nonfiction piece, for example.) 

2. A prose poem can create a “breathless” quality that the writer might be trying to achieve. Coupled with some stream-of-conscious content, the prose poem can come at you “all at once” accentuated by its lack of line breaks.

3. Prose poems can couple well with experimental writing styles. I’ve read successful prose poems structured as numbered lists, “found” poems, and even a nutritional label. The possibilities and combinations are endless.

The crux of the issue is this: a good prose poem is intentional. There are reasons why the writer chose to use that form versus another. If you want to ensure that you’re crafting quality prose poems, consider whether it serves the material or is simply a wonky embellishment.

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The two types of writers: Writing vs. Written

Dorothy Parker famously quipped, “I hate writing. I love having written.”

While I adore the Queen of Wit, her and I part ways on this subject. 

So often, in the literati parlance, you hear the same sorts of adages. People down through the ages have echoed the same mentality. Some famous examples to illustrate the point are as follows:

“I am not at all in a humor for writing; I must write on until I am.” – Jane Austen

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at the typewriter and bleed.” – Ernest Hemingway

“I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.” – Gustave Flaubert

A large quantity of writers throughout the years have seemed to prefer “having written” to writing. On the surface, it’s pretty easy to understand why. There’s nothing quite as dopamine-inducing as looking down at a completed manuscript and knowing that it only exists as a fruit of your labor.

Still, I can’t quite agree with the sentiment.

For me, the writing–the actual act of putting pen to paper or clicking the keys with my fingertips approaches sacramental. Perhaps you can chalk it up to my affinity for poetry, but I actually prefer the “main event” to the moment when I can throw my pencil down with a sigh.

At the risk of sounding reductive, I think there’s a fairly black-and-white distinction to be made between two types of writers. Much like you can supposedly divide novelists into the two groups “plotters” or “pantsers,” I think you can divide writers by those who enjoy the writing and those who enjoy “having written.” 

You can think of the writing/written binary as Apollonian vs. Dionysian. 

The Apollonian writers enjoy having written. The process is but a means to the end. What really counts is having the ink dry. Each of the quotations above illustrates this point of view.

Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with Apollonian writers! I, too, love checking boxes and hitting deadlines. With that said, I think there’s another (perhaps rarer) type of writer that doesn’t fit this schematic.

The Dionysian writer revels in the process. The actual intoxicating act of thinking up new ideas is where it’s at for this type. The writing is as important or more important than the finished product. I believe myself to be among these types.

Here are a few quotations from the greats that serve as a sort of “counterweight” to the aforementioned “Apollonian” writers:

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” – Anais Nin

“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” – Anne Frank

“If I knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often. It’s a mysterious condition. It’s much like the life of a Catholic nun. You’re married to a mystery.” –Leonard Cohen

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” – Ray Bradbury

What about you? Do you think that this division of writer-types is valid? If so, which do you count yourself among?

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J.R.R. Tolkien vs. Flannery O’Connor- Escapism in Fiction (Craft)

(by Daniel R. Jones)

Suppose you were to take out a notebook and a pen and list off the best Christ-following authors you could think of from the 20th Century. 
Chances are, the names “J.R.R. Tolkien” and “Flannery O’Connor” would both be listed on Page One.

But despite their larger-than-life status as novelists and forerunners of Christian thought, both authors had a decidedly different take on the creative life. Consider, for example, the following two quotations, which represent almost diametrically opposed truths about writing:

“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!” -J.R.R. Tolkien


“I’m always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it’s very shocking to the system.” -Flannery O’Connor

So what gives? How is it that Tolkien advocates for escapism in writing and O’Connor denounces it? Which is correct, artistically speaking? Which is the right mindset, spiritually?

The answer, of course, is nuanced. 

Let’s start with the artistry aspect. It helps to look at the distinction in writing styles between Tolkien and O’Connor. It’s hard to imagine two writers so entirely unalike: Tolkien, the Oxford-educated, high-fantasy-obsessed polyglot, was famous for his epic and elaborate tomes. O’Connor, on the other hand, was Southern Gothic through and through, and her most famous works were short stories that explored the grisly reality of human nature.

Is at any wonder that their fiction reflected their views on craft? 

Since both writers contrast so drastically, it’s a more useful question to ask whether they succeeded in their particular aims. Luckily, the answer to this question is much easier to answer: it is a resounding yes. Both J.R.R. Tolkien and Flannery O’Connor have received much critical acclaim and popularity. Their works have stood the test of time, and serve as insightful literature that speaks to the human condition. Undoubtedly, both were–and are, successful. 

The two took drastically different artistic approaches, but both shared common themes: unexpected grace, (compare Tolkien’s concept of the “eucatastrophe” and the character “Bevel” in “The River,) the duality of humankind (consider Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings and Julian in “Everything That Rises Must Converge,”) redemption of a deeply flawed individual (think of “Boromir” and “Gollum” in The Lord of the Rings and “the Grandmother” and “the Misfit” in “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”)

These shared themes that run throughout the corpus of work these two literary heavyweights are not a happy accident. They can be traced back to the same source: they were both profoundly impacted by their love for Christ and their Catholic faith. So while they took two contradictory approaches to the creative life, the similarities that bound them were significant enough and elucidated well enough to make them both correct.

Perhaps a final quotation can best illustrate this point. C.S. Lewis, who famously disliked T.S. Eliot’s poetry, acknowledged that the two served the same God. As such, he said about Eliot: “I agree with him about matters of such moment that all literary questions are, in comparison, trivial.” 

May we all take such a mature view.

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Don’t phone it in

Students of history may be familiar with the famous (or perhaps, infamous) perfectionism of Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the Nixon and Ford administrations. Politics aside, there is an illustrative story of his uncompromising standards during the late sixties:

Winston Lord, the Ambassador to China at the time, was tasked with writing a speech for Kissinger. Kissinger, a gifted speechwriter himself, had exacting standards for those who served under him.

The story is told that Winston Lord brought the first draft of the speech to Kissinger one evening for his feedback and approval. The next morning, Kissinger called him back and asked, “Is this the best you can do?”

Lord thought it over. He thought he’d done his best. He answered, “I’ll try again.”

A second time, he tinkered with his speech and brought it back to him after a few days had passed. And again, Kissinger asked him, “Is this the best you can do?”

Lord was shaken up, but stated he could do better.

The process continued for eight drafts. Each time, Kissinger resolutely asked, “Is this the best you can do?” After the ninth draft, Lord finally responded, indignantly, “I know it’s the best I can do! Not a word can be improved upon!”

Henry Kissinger looked on Winston Lord and replied, “In that case, now I’ll read it.”

Maybe this story made you smile. Or maybe it made you cringe at the unrelenting perfectionism showed by Kissinger. In any event, I believe there’s a takeaway for each of us, as artists, from this anecdote.

They say that artists are perfectionists by nature. I didn’t get that gene.

The first time I read this story, I felt a sort of conviction related to my writing. True, I’m not delivering important, policy-shaping speeches to heads of state…but how often do I just “phone it in” when I’m working on a new piece of writing? If I’m being honest with myself, it happens more often than I’d like.

Steven Pressfield makes a great case for rugged self-discipline when it comes to writing in his book The War of Art. If you’re struggling with writer’s block, I highly recommend it to start winning “your inner creative battles,” as he puts it.

That book (and this post) is not for everyone. Some writers edit and revise their pieces to ribbons. Some artists trash their seventeenth version of a painting before tearing their hair out. But if you’re like me and you sometimes struggle to “give it your all,” I hope this blogpost acts as the kick in the pants that you need.

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Talking Shop: Dead to Oneself; Alive to the Work

by Daniel R. Jones

I’ve enjoyed the work of Wendell Berry for quite some time. His books often exist at the confluence of multiple topics: conservation, agriculture and husbandry, poetry, and his own faith. Berry is the son of a lawyer, and perhaps as a result, he always writes with crystal-clear diction. He is also a farmer, and so he writes with that archetypal hint of familiarity and down-to-earth warmth. 

Recently, while reading A Small Porch, which includes both poetry and an essay on the topic of Nature (with a capital “N,”) the following passage leapt out at me:

How does an instructive poem instruct? The answer seems obvious – by containing something worth knowing – but there is one condition: It must teach without intending to do so. In support of this I offer a sentence by Jacques Maritain, who said of the cathedral builders: “Their achievement revealed God’s truth, but without doing it on purpose, and because it was not done on purpose. The point, I believe, is what the cathedral builders were doing on purpose was building a cathedral. Any other purpose would have distracted them from the thing they were making and spoiled their work. Teaching as a purpose, as such, is difficult to prescribe or talk about because the thing it is proposing to make is usually something so vague as “understanding.”

And later,

Just so, an honest poet who is making a poem is doing neither more nor less than making a poem, undistracted by the thought even that it will be read. Poets, or some poets, bear witness as faithfully as possible to what they have experienced or observed, suffered or enjoyed, and this inevitably is instructive to anybody able to be instructed. But the instruction is secondary. It must be embodied in the work.

I believe there is a truth to be gleaned about the Christ-follower as a co-creator here. 

The cathedral-builders described by Maritain bring to mind Bezalel and Oholiab, the namesakes of this website. Those men were described in Scripture as “filled with God’s Spirit, with wisdom, understanding, and ability in every craft to design artistic works…” (Exodus 31:1-5, HCSB.)

I believe what Wendell Berry is after here is that as artists, we are often better able to reveal truth— God’s truth – by getting lost in what we are doing. Rather than following a step-by-step, prescribed process, we are better able to accomplish our artistic vision by, well, forgetting about it.

This might sound a little mystical. Maybe it is. But put simply, I think it cuts to the heart of where many of us go wrong when we try to create a “Christian poem,” or a “Christian painting,” etc. I believe a lot of creatives who love Jesus sit down, and say to themselves, (maybe not in so many words,) “I am going to create something beautiful with a Christ-honoring message. I’m going to create something edifying, with a definite moral.” 

And to be clear, this is a noble goal. 

But sitting down with a pre-meditated intention for the theme of your work is rarely the bet way to accomplish that goal. Most art can’t be reverse-engineered in this way: picking first the desired effect you’d like to make on your audience, then choosing the theme accordingly, dressing it in a plot, and finally adding in characters and dialogue. Such approaches to art can stifle the life out of the work. At very least, they certainly deprive it of its mystery. The end-result often falls flat.

In a thought-provoking conversation published in the New Yorker, Berry paraphrases the artist David Jones, saying “to be dead to oneself is to be alive to the work.”

Call it self-abandonment. Call it getting “lost in the moment.” Call it the dissolution of ego.

Whatever you call it, there’s a recurring notion that high-caliber, Christ-honoring art is less about meticulously checking off a prescribed list of boxes to shoehorn a creative work into the category of “Christian art” and more about seeing the work through to its completion—staying true to the work at hand. The final product is often an homage to the Creator, unquestioningly glorifying Him, anyway. 

In a sentence, art that glorifies God most often comes out of a natural overflow of who we are in Him.

I think Wendell Berry’s word serves as a good reminder: Let’s get out of our own way. In so doing, we may succeed in not only creating better art, but also accomplish that loftier goal stated by John the Baptist: “He must become greater; I must become less,” (John 3:30 NIV.) 

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The Numinous in Lovecraft: A Christ-follower’s Thoughts on Horror

Jewelers refer to the brilliance of well-cut diamonds as their “fire.” There are a variety of factors that allow a diamond to sparkle: the quality of the cut, the clarity of the diamond’s surface, the carat size.

The same can be said, I think, of literature. A writer’s brilliance can be determined by a number of things: the quality of craftsmanship, the clarity of the message, the sheer enormity of the story.

But ultimately, the written work, like the diamond’s fire, is only as good as the light pouring through it. Often, I’ve marveled at the multifaceted worlds of some luminous writer, and thought to myself, “What beautiful intricacy, but what a dingy light.”

I regret to say this was my reaction to much of H.P. Lovecraft’s work.

As I’ve culled through the mainstays of his work, I must admit, I’ve been blown away by the cohesive universe he built around the Cthulu mythos. Previously, I’d read “The Dunwitch Horrors” and “The Music of Erich Zann.” Recently, I’ve delved into “The Call of Cthulu” and “At the Mountains of Madness.” Most of Lovecraft’s corpus of work weaves seamlessly into the fabric of the Cthulu universe–populated by “Old Ones,” multidimensional beings, and non-Euclidean geometry.

But the aspect of Lovecraft’s work that most interests me most is his particular attentiveness to the numinous.

I’ve written in depth about the concept of the numinous in the past, which can be broadly defined as the “uncanny” or “wholly other” impression left upon human beings by the supernatural. In spiritual terms, the numinous is the aspect of holiness beyond the grasp of human’s rational mind. But in Lovecraft’s pulpy, weird tales, the numinous takes on a much more ominous connotation. His works are replete with beings and knowledge that exceed humanity’s reach. These alien beings overwhelm and mystify Lovecraft’s protagonists, driving them to madness, homicide, or suicide.

What makes Lovecraft’s stories so chilling is that they have a basis in reality: the numinous devoid of benevolence is unsettling.

It’s one thing to think of God in terms of the numinous. As we read scripture, many of us have grappled with the thought of “fearing God.” We may wonder if the Hebrew or Greek word for “fear” connotes the same feelings of trepidation as the English one. C.S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain that when we experience the numinous aspect of God, we “feel wonder and a certain shrinking.”

But no matter how you define the “fear of God,” we as believers in Christ can ultimately put our trust in Him because we know that his intentions toward us are good, and that He is loving.

Not so with Lovecraft’s creatures. The numinous divorced from holiness becomes something utterly profane. They’re not supernatural, but instead become something preternatural, and eventually even subnatural.

In Lovecraft’s works, he imagines entities from other realms beyond humanity’s understanding–aliens as malevolent as they are beyond us, and that is what makes his work truly horrifying.

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Talking Shop: Tone and Voice

(“Talking Shop” is an ongoing series on the craft of creative writing.)

I’ve talked a little about David Shields’ seminal book Reality Hunger in a past post. Today I want to respond to another quotation from that same book. Here’s a statement quoted in his chapter about flash fiction:

“Even as they’re exploring extremely serious and complex material, short-short writers frequently use a certain mock modesty to give the work a tossed-off tone and disarm the reader. The reader thinks he’s reading a diary entry, when in fact it’s a lyric essay or prose poem.”

Shields goes on to cite examples, one of which being “Morning News” by Jerome Stern

Although I certainly agree with Shields that this “mock modesty” is common in flash fiction, I’m unsure that it’s fair to say that microfiction utilizes this technique across the board.

This does, however, bring up the topic of tone in flash fiction. As writers, we have to ensure we don’t confuse our tone with our literary voice. One of the best ways to ensure we don’t confuse the two is by having a proper definition of each term.

Tone is the writer’s attitude toward his subject, his audience or himself. One can have a sarcastic tone. One can be flippant or somber or self-reflecting or abrasive. All of these are examples of a writer’s tone in a particular piece.

Literary voice, on the other hand, is the distinctive style a writer has. Hemingway was known for his concise style. It made him have a distinct voice. Douglas Adams is known for his humorous approach to science fiction. F. Scott Fitzgerald is known for his flowery prose.

So how can we confuse tone and literary voice? Well, left unchecked, our stories can all share the same tone, and run the risk of becoming formulaic. For example, I love using irony in my microfictions. But If I’m not careful, I will use it in all my stories, and pretty soon they’ll all read in a very predictable manner.

Have you ever enjoyed the first track of an album, only to find that each subsequent song sounded exactly the same? As writers, we have to ensure we vary our tone from piece to piece while maintaining our distinct voice.

How do you find this at play in your writing? Do you gravitate toward a certain tone in your work? If so, how do you avoid falling into a rut? What makes your literary voice distinctly you?

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Talking Shop: Minimalism and Flash Fiction

(“Talking Shop” is an ongoing series on the craft of creative writing.)

Minimalism has turned our society upside down.

Apple products have left consumers spellbound by their simplicity. Room decor has become increasingly elegant. Web designers succeed or fail, depending on how effortless their websites are to navigate.

What might be less obvious, however, are the ways in which minimalism has infiltrated our art.

For instance, sparse instrumentation and simple words created the smash hit “Say Something (I’m Giving Up On You)” by A Great Big World.

I believe that a similar frame of mind dominates some of the best flash fiction.

An old writing maxim is “Show, don’t tell.” In other words, rather than describing a character as “a nervous type,” show these traits by what the character does: give him a nervous tic, make him ring his hands, give his speech a stammer, let him pace the room, etc.

The same applies to flash fiction, but sometimes the most revealing aspects of a character or a plot lie in what isn’t revealed.

Consider, for example, the poem “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” by Randall Jarrell:

From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Though it isn’t microfiction, this piece of writing perfectly illustrates how writing can be made more luminous by what is left out. The narrator didn’t give you the gruesome details of the how the ball turret gunner died. Instead he turned your stomach by simply stating: “When I died, they washed me out of the turret with a hose.”

In the New York Times article “Hearing the Notes That Aren’t Played,” David Mamet writes,

How much can one remove and still have the composition be intelligible? This understanding, or its lack, divides those who can write from those who can really write. Checkhov removed the plot. Pinter, elaborating, removed the history, the narration; Beckett, the characterization. We hear it anyway. Omission is a form of creation.

This idea that “omission is a form of creation” seems to me at the crux of many great pieces of writing. What are some examples you have found of this principle at work? Do you know any great flash fiction that utilizes this technique? Let’s talk in the comments below!

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