folio : short takes on the prose poem
I see prose poetry as a liminal space between a visceral, intuitive density of meaning and a clear, accessible, straightforward structure. There are so many reasons why someone might choose such a form. For example, to tell a story with a unique idiolect that isn’t necessarily bound by plot. To depict a certain type of process with a familiar form, but foreign function. To place complex thoughts in an approachable forum. The poems included here come from a project that centers on a genderless unreliable narrator tasked with writing the universe into existence. I wanted a continuous structure to shore up the expansiveness of the content and help contain it. In this context, the consistency of form allowed the content more room to spread out, to get stranger, to take more leaps, while simultaneously feeling grounded and conversational. I wanted the speaker to feel very human and approachable, while also being otherworldly and almost godlike. For me, the prose poem enables opposing entities to come together.
The Narrator Invents Two Left Feet
Sometimes you just have to flesh it out. Diagram the movements on the page and hope they’ll turn into something. I charted out the paths of the great explorers, but someone in the future mistook the scale and thought they were dance steps. Now I have a society of movement. I guess it’s an effective replica, if not my original intention. It embodies the history of a smaller page. The new world was a very wrong waltz. And the people could settle there a while as long as their dance cards were full.
The Narrator Wanes Philosophical
I am selecting random words to describe myself. As an apogee moon, I am at the furthest point, simultaneously asserting myself and fading away in the distance. Like that old cliché of traveling the world to find yourself but getting lost instead. No, that’s wrong. Either way, you always end up where you began. Today I want a quick fix, an easy sense of accomplishment, so I’m just going to add a few more stars to the nightscape. Maybe a new constellation as an inside joke with the universe.
I’ve been working on my vocabulary. The problem is, if you learn too many languages at once, it’s way harder to keep track of all the words. More so if you made them all up. I don’t need a sophisticated lexicon to write pictures on the sky, but I appreciate the constant implication of metaphor.
