Discover Literature Archives

Prose Poetry: What’s the Point?

10/05/202102/24/2023
by Hannah Huff

LET’S INVESTIGATE PROSE POETRY – THAT OXYMORONIC, SLIGHTLY OBNOXIOUS LITERARY FORM

Prose poetry. It sounds like an oxymoron. Like jumbo shrimp. Or plastic silverware. Or a soothing Lithuanian folk song. But it does indeed exist, having been wrought into existence by the exceptional creativity or pure boredom of writers. But why? Why taint the dainty lines of poetry with the blocky bulk of prose? Let’s find out by looking at the form’s history, major works, essential characteristics, and a literary analysis of Robert Bly’s prose poem “Warning to the Reader.”

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Poets, Allow Me to Reintroduce Metaphor and Simile

02/25/202102/24/2023
by Hannah Huff

USE THESE FIGURES OF SPEECH TO ELEVATE YOUR CREATIVE WRITING

Romeo and Juliet. Coyote and Raven. Lucy and Ethel. There have been many dynamic duos throughout history, but none so inseparable as Metaphor and Simile, those two figures of speech that are always taught together in third grade classrooms and onward. How could any of us forget that a metaphor is when you say something is something else and a simile is when you say it with “like” or “as”?

But alas, it seems that many of our era’s best(selling) poets are content to wallow in the literal, or extend only the tippy-top of their tiniest toe into the rich waters of metaphor and simile. Perhaps it’s because they learned these figures of speech so long ago, they’ve forgotten how they function. Or perhaps it’s because readers seem equally content to shrug off the imaginative leap required to appreciate the metaphorical. Whatever the case, getting reacquainted with metaphors and similes will make us all better readers and writers, so let’s cannonball in.

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Ekphrastic Poetry: When Art Kindles Literature

01/25/201902/24/2023
by Hannah Huff

MAGIC HAPPENS WHEN POETS RUMINATE ON MASTERPIECES

Ekphrastic poetry is right up there with the villanelle, the ghazal, the abecedarian, and other specific poetic forms that lead a highly intramural existence: poets know what they are, but rarely write them once they leave the MFA creative writing programs where they’re required to spit out such guided assignments. The problem is that in the real world, most readers don’t know what the hell those words mean, let alone the nuances of each form, and as a poet struggling to make even $5 off a poem — actually, make that even $1 — there’s no point in also struggling to write poems that have ground rules: we poets must have some small joy in our feats of creation.

But what a loss! All of those types of poetry, and the one we’re here to discuss today — ekphrastic poetry — can crack the shell on pithy nuts of insight that will never otherwise be opened through our usual, more organic modes of inspiration and composition. Thus, this blog post will hopefully educate readers on the joys of an unfamiliar type of poetry, and also rouse writers from their creative stupor — including myself.

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Dear Bad Writers, Read This Poetic Line Breaks Guide

11/08/201802/24/2023
by Hannah Huff

STEP UP YOUR POETRY GAME WITH BETTER LINE BREAKS AND ENJAMBMENT

What makes a poem, a poem? Long story short, poetic line breaks. Of course, many other literary elements fuse to make poems croon, but poetry is visibly distinct from prose because its lines are sundered before the page’s natural end, at clearly calculated points. Poems are dialogues between the presence that is the text and the absence that is the white space revealed.

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8 Key Literary Elements in Every Written Masterpiece

09/20/201802/24/2023
by Hannah Huff

WHAT GOOD READERS SHOULD LOOK FOR IN GREAT BOOKS

Good books transcend genre; their caliber doesn’t depend on their focus. Indeed, the very best books are often about nothing at all, other than planning a party (ahem, Mrs. Dalloway), and yet, they can transform the reader through their use of these eight key literary elements. Any written masterpiece should employ these techniques in abundance, synthesizing them to create a reading experience as rich as running your palm over a mossy boulder beside the ocean on an autumn afternoon as your love makes tea inside an amber-lit beach house.