To Prose or Not to Prose

I have been working on a series of prose poems these last few months. It has come to the point where I scoff lines breaks; I feel a certain superiority to those fools sweating over where to pause and start again. Like any silly human, I am prone to poor judgement and biases. While I have loved every minute of my prose-obsession, I have stupidly ignored the fact that it takes a great amount of craft and mastery to pull off a successful line break. So I'm here to briefly discuss the merits of both forms.

1. Prose - It's just plain liberating. When you forget about line breaks, you are free to revel in language. The words stand for themselves. The music comes solely from the choice and order of words. Pauses come from punctuation. Many poets and poetry critics in the past have considered prose beneath them, but I'm here to say shut up and listen!

2. Line Breaks - The traditional form of poetry, poems with lines breaks can create a rhythm that is much more difficult to accomplish in prose. Line breaks can create a fast beat, a slow beat, an awkward beat, any kind of tempo you desire. Sometimes, line breaks can ruin an otherwise good poem. In contrast, a mediocre poem can be elevated with amazing line breaks. I am reading Mary Oliver's Evidence, and although I adore Oliver's body of work, I am not moved by most of the poems in the book until I read them aloud. Yup, I'm going there AGAIN. Sorry, but before you write me off forever, read this poem while strictly observing the lines breaks. Pause for a second or two at the end of each line.

More Honey Locust

 by Mary Oliver (from Evidence, Beacon Press, 2009)

Any day now 
the branches 
of the honey locust
will be filled
with white fountains;
in my hands
I will see
the holy seeds
and a sweetness
will rise up
from those petal-bundles
so heavy
I must close my eyes
to take it in,
to bear
such generosity.
I hope that you too
know the honey locust,
the fragrance
of those fountains;
and I hope that you too will pause
to admire the slender trunk,
the leaves, the holy seeds,
the ground they grow from
year after year
with striving and patience;
and I hope that you too
will say a word of thanks
for such creation
out of the wholesome earth,
which would be, and dearly is it needed,
a prayer for all of us.

This poem is so heavy. The short line breaks build and build until I feel like I'm suffocating in the language (not in a bad way). The perfumed air is thick. The words combined with the line breaks make you pause, just as Oliver says "I hope that you too will pause." We do pause because she makes us pause. There are other elements at work here, like the long sentences and exuberant use of commas, but the line breaks seal the deal. It's methodical. It's rhythmic, almost trance-like. It's a deliberate and successful prayer.

So the choice is up to you. Good poems come in all forms. As a famous poet once said to me as I watched her scribble her name on my copy of her book, "Write, Lesley, you have to write." So I say to you, "Write, INSERT YOUR NAME HERE, you have to write."