Lines Are for Suckers: Writing the Prose Poem [Jason Whitmarsh & Sierra Nelson]

Charles Simic: “Writing a prose poem is a bit like trying to catch a fly in a dark room. The fly probably isn’t even there, the fly is inside your head, still, you keep tripping over and bumping into things in hot pursuit. The prose poem is a burst of language following a collision with a large piece of furniture.” Let’s set out the couches, the divans, the settees, and the side tables (with Jorge Borges, Arthur Rimbaud, Gertrude Stein, Anne Carson, Zachary Schomburg, Lydia Davis, and Joy Williams, among others) and go fly hunting. You’ll leave with a batch of new work based on a series of innovative prompts. Open to writers at all levels of experience.