Writing poetry is like trying to walk off a metaphor that overstayed its welcome. You’re barefoot, slightly dazed, and the verse is still whispering nonsense in your ear. It’s no different when two of your most beloved modes of expression collide and suggest a fusion. You wait it out—like water, it finds its own level.
Excire: The Accidental Jewel
A typo born in my very first Suzette Swan Arc poem, Starlight Eyes, now imbued with layered meaning. It was the Word of the Day, and the definition offered in that poem: (noun) exhilaration and desire—a state of emotional intensity, perhaps tinged with longing or creative hunger.
Starlight Eyes (poetrysoup.com)
What is a prosimetrum, really?
At its core, a prosimetrum is a literary form that interweaves prose and verse, often with a dynamic tension or interplay between the two. Traditionally, the verse is considered the dominant or climactic element, offering emotional resonance, aesthetic closure, or philosophical depth. In a genre where prose is the dominant form, for example, novels, it is called versiprose.
Classic examples:
- Haibun: prose plus haiku (verse as emotional pivot or imagistic distillation)
- Tanka prose: prose plus tanka (often more lyrical, with a romantic or reflective tone)
Prosimetrum is not restricted to these classic forms, but it may be any combination of short prose and verse, for example, prose and free verse—especially in contemporary or experimental contexts.
Considerations:
- Length & balance: If the prose is too long or the verse too slight, it may feel like an essay with a poetic garnish—not a true prosimetrum.
- Function of verse: Is the verse merely decorative, or does it transform the prose? The latter is key.
- Ethos of integration: Does the pairing feel organic, or stitched together like mismatched limbs?
Excire: A Form for the Meta-Modern Moment
Authentic haibun honours its lineage—Basho’s quiet footsteps echo in even the most contemporary offerings. Tanka prose, too, carries centuries of emotional cadence, its freedom of personal expression evident in the seamless segue from prose to poem.
But Excire is not a departure. It is an arrival.
It offers the meta-modern poet an alternative: a form that captures lived-in moments with language that is uniquely theirs. Where haibun may seek stillness and tanka prose may seek resonance, Excire seeks oscillation. It is the breath caught between laughter and grief, the scandal of timing, the shrug of meaning suspended.
Excire is not just a form—it is a mood, a movement, a moment.
Tidal Excire (poetrysoup.com)
The Vignette – A Form of Prose Poetry
The one golden rule of a vignette: Create an atmosphere, not a story.
Vignette is a focussed narrative sketch using evocative language to express a certain moment, mood, aspect, setting, character, or object, juxtaposing it in sharp focus against a lost background. It dispenses with the introduction and conclusion found in flash fiction and left untitled. It may be real or imagined. Normal grammar rules apply. In any POV, but usually uses the present tense—it relates the immediate experience.
For the vignette one employs literary devices similar to poetry to enhance the text, for example, imagery and symbolism. Unlike traditional poetry, prose poetry discards line breaks and metre, but clings to rhythm, imagery, and emotional precision. It’s less about what happened, more about how it felt—a vignette is the echo, not the event. For example:
You had threatened to leave me so many times in the past that I did not actually see you go. Only when your mug of coffee had gone cold on the breakfast counter this morning did it register with me.
The evocation of you lingers like a ghost apple after the fetid core had been dispelled, haunting me with tantalising false memories.
Copyright © Suzette Richards (2020)
The vignette in Excire is not a genre but a relationship: a brief, impressionistic form that inhales experience and exhales ambiguity through the Suzette Swan Arc poem—resisting narrative closure in favour of emotional cadence and interpretive drift. True to its ethos, the vignette creates a mood and does not merely relate a story, hence it is written in the present tense: it relives the moment. It is usually written in the 1st person POV, unless it suits the narrative to switch the POV.
Vignettes typically avoid dialogue because their power lies in mood, tone, and impression rather than plot or character interaction. They're like literary snapshots: brief, evocative, and atmospheric. Dialogue can disrupt that stillness or shift the focus toward narrative mechanics.
However…
Some vignettes do use dialogue sparingly, especially when:
- The speech enhances the emotional texture or theme.
- It’s fragmentary or stylised, blending into the prose like brushstrokes.
- The vignette leans toward dramatic monologue or interiority, where voice is central.
Think of Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street—some vignettes whisper dialogue like overheard memories, not full conversations. See my following poem as an example:
True Story (poetrysoup.com)
The Suzette Swan Arc: Letting the Light In
Suzette Swan Arc Essentials:
- Oscillation over linearity – recurs, shifts, resists finality.
- Enjambment as lifeblood – sinuous flow, natural momentum.
- Pivotal shifts – reframing perception, intuitive fragmentation.
- Concise expression – short phrases, weighted words.
- A return without conclusion – an ending that insists on more.
The Suzette Swan Arc is not restricted to number of lines or to particular line lengths, for example, syllable counts, but in Excire it is an instinctive balance between the prose and verse—when the poet feels he has communicated enough to leave the reader to complete the ‘story’. It’s the art of show, don’t tell—but more than that, it’s the art of trusting the reader.
The verse is not like a prosthesis, but may be a phantom limb to complete the thought process and supply crucial information to ultimately leave the reader in a pensive mood—not with closure, but with resonance. The verse lingers like a memory the prose couldn’t quite articulate—a natural segue is often favoured between prose and verse, but sometimes a poet has to do what a poet has to do …
In this model, the prose might be the cognitive scaffold—the narrative, the logic, the exposition. The verse becomes the emotional nerve ending—the part that twitches after the story ends, that aches with meaning. See my Excire:
Dust to Dust (poetrysoup.com)
The Placement of the Verse
One of the characteristics of Suzette Swan Arc is its open-ended finale; hence the verse always follows the prose. With Excire the verse circles the prose like a moth to the flame, but escapes to live another day to tantalise the reader …
Capitalisation, punctuation, and typographical marks are the poet’s prerogative—just as the stylistic layout on the page conjures the illusion of extended thought, or invites ambiguity through tantalising words and phrases that beckon alternative interpretations. It is the poet’s conversation with the reader.
Conclusion
Excire is not just a form—it’s a mood, a movement, a moment suspended. It asks: What happens when prose gasps and poetry sighs? When words dissolve, yet the atmosphere remains—not something you can slice clean, but something that settles quietly into every fibre of your being.
Conceived by accident, Excire is maturing in the hands of poets who embrace its quiet intensity, nurturing its potential in a world of hurried lives, instant gratification, and seductive allogorisms* that tempt us to betray the essence of poetic expression.
*Allogorisms: (A neologism) A critique of algorithmic logic or shallow allegory. My fingers were typing faster than my mind could keep up. Yes, it’s a typo—but like ‘Excire’, a happy accident. And perhaps the most honest way to end this piece: with a sigh, a shimmer, and a smile.
All rights reserved.
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
Excire first appeared in the publication:
Copyright © Niaiz, by Suzette Richards (2025)
PDF
ISBN 978-1-997459-20-0(e-book)
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Related articles:
The Versatile Vignette Poetry | PoetrySoup.com
Oscillation – A Defining Feature of Suzette Swan Arc Poetry | PoetrySoup.com
Also see my blog:
Haibun - Subtle and Respectful - Suzette Richards Blog (poetrysoup.com)
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