Her suffering was her currency as she would trade in sympathies among a band of devils driven wild by their needs to be possessed and to possess in a world seldom fair being built in complications simple heads never seem to ever understand and.
She was Magnificent.
They way she tore me down. Only one other thing had ever hurt me more.
Jack Kerouac, the 50's Beat poet with this English language style 'haiku' form does just to the western world classic features of the tercet form ..no title ..free syllabics..but the last line keeps to the 'happening' moment that identifies it as 'hiku"
Canadian born Jack Kerouac
a poet of the 50's 'Beat gen' pack
Known for his western 'hiku'
keeping to its features then so new
stream of consciousness spontaneous prose
how his famous 'on the road' novel flows
A bundle of nerves tied in a knot as tight and as tangled as eldredge, around my neck, while the fuss of the life around me drowns me to chaos still. I go into waters so deep it gets hard to swim back up. The minuscule parts of my muscle throb and fight my being in a different kind of pain, wanting to be freed. Wanting to run a direction so divergent we may never find our way back home. And yet the longing for a explicit homestead stays.
The head of mine is participation to an all-time war, that only and only asks for my sanity as its reward. Every bone in my body gets the signal through every other fiber, to shut it up!...and yet I can't.
I think about jumping off of very tall somethings, but a voice in my head laughs at my own visions of a certain indiscretion. Like a breed of my own monsters calling out my cowardice. While a soft, warm being hides behind the door forcibly closed with locks too hard for her to open. She knows something I don't.
The volume, pressure, expansion, contraction- nothing works through the cavity. Nothing bleeds for lucidity, only for the curse I cage myself with.
The artist is absent, i guess i killed her off. Built her, just to break her- like a ceramic cup in the decor. A sway and the pieces fall, broken down in chunks of her pain. In the story of everything, the art suffers- tight ship, bad weather- nothing helps. There's no shore to go to. You stay with the wind, flock with the waves like a clueless bird, hoping someday you'll reach a comfort of a place you get to call home. I didn't feed her soul- with words full of love, hate, sad, happy- all she can feel is a hole, in her life where the content used to be. Where the quill-and-ink rested along with a page, ready to be scribbled, ready to be filled with her mind's rage. The ink bleeds once or not at all. It's tiring, having to walk in the spring season, fresh air, new hopes different dreams and yet feeling like the fall.
Every step she takes, every mistake she makes, all the roadblocks that make her feel nothing at all. Carnations over her gazettes, no scriptures, no memories to recall. It has faded into nothing yet she bleeds it somehow. The writer is absent, I think I've killed her off. Clueless in her own world somehow.
Leigh Hunt's double quatrain -linked centres around 'Time you thief' ,a bio romantic memory of youth from the nostalgia of old age...a typical recurring happening I can confirm as someone very aged myself
Eclipse Concrete poems of Alan Riddell
With 50 word pictures( this short book of concrete poems was in 1972) truly innovative using a typewriter keyboard to create concrete poetry
.The current expanded digital keyboard of the modern era facilitates
greater pictorial shape poetry
( as illustrated for example by the 'emagi' reverse
ekphrasis poetic form) which owes much to the
concepts displayed half a century earlier .
Concrete poet Alan Riddell
with the typewriter did excel
Picture poems were his (u) (s) (p)
created with a simple tab-key
WHY AMERICAN COLONIES WERE LOST a lyrical local guide by US PoetrySoup poet is
Massey's outstanding sonnet poetry piece (second of the series) penned in the cross genre 'literary poetics ' follows in the footsteps of ground - breakingauthor Martin Gray,but extending it structurally ,beyond iambic trimeter ,thus bringing into play both rhyme&sonnet syllabics.
A 160 page poem with15 chapters ,each with a historic background intro) The poem has the dual bonus of being for loversof the combination of both poetry&history .
Yesterday, who knows where I was, lost in my thoughts.
Yesterday, a morning when you wake up in Moscow or Budapest.
Yesterday, a day when the light caresses other horizons.
Yesterday, a night when the darkness of a sky resembles yours.
Yesterday, I am already far away, my body carries my melancholy.
Yesterday is the memory of a living breath that left me.
Yesterday, I whirl in the four winds and drift away from tomorrow.
Yesterday, images build the memory of small moments.
Yesterday, awaited messages that warm our hearts.
Yesterday, sufferings that broke you and left you like an orphan.
Yesterday, a flight of swallows leaving an electric wire.
Yesterday, the warmth of your gaze lost in mine.
Yesterday, my words that play, trying to find yours again.
Yesterday, the beginning of an end, or at least a road fading away.
Yesterday, I wish you had never existed so I wouldn’t have to mourn you.
Yesterday, I beg you, stay today or become the day before yesterday.
Joel Charvillat .
a cummings apt free verse personification presented LOWER CASE style as two quatrains... atypical short&to the point
Edward Estlin Cummings so inventive
penned poetry so sensitive
He loved to write in lower case style
interspersed by CAPITALS once in a while
initialled as Edward Eselm
originality known throughout the poetic realm
In the vertical not horizontal
whose lower case was so unusual
e e cummings a poet, i be
this is how i found my u s p
in verse to be so 'original'
lower case & in the vertical
Sarumino -BASHO MONKEYS RAINCOAT is unique in Renku ,the ancient collaborative form(36 stanza linked verse poems)with examples from Basho(and his disciples...)namely Winters First shower/Summer moon/Katydid/and Plum young herbs, considered to the most typical of Basho's mature style conveying his attitude to life & compiled during his 1689 'Back Roads' pilgrimage ,the translator/editor adds both a cultural commentary for each stanza therein and an index of informative notes thereto
A haikuist was Matsuo Basho
his masterwork,Kasen *you know
He practiced this long poetic sequence
a 36 stanza poem recited in length
*www.jstor.org/stable/2718744
An atypical Carroll comic conversational satire style poesy in three voices in 40/40/28 tercet stanzas in the series of this genre to which he is identified & on which his reputation & epitaph rests
Lewis Carroll famed now for 'Alice'
a wonderland lass with no vice
Also in verse he did persist
Jabberwocky revealed him a linguist
Children's books of worldwide acclaim
Whimsical humour in nonsense rhyme
Of childhood days in summertime-
Its acrostic brought Liddel's fame,
The story ending with Alice's full name
Emerson ,a 'literary lion ' of his era 1803 -1882, (& of Unitarian sect) in this abab quatrain 'Sacrifice' alludes to Christ's redeeming free gift to confessing sinners ,(those true believers )who then accept
Ralph Waldo Emerson
a minister unitarian
When filled with consuming doubt
prosody poured forth..without
John Donne* (1572 – March 31, 1631 Jacobean poet, satirist, lawyer and preacher/cleric in the Church of England considered the founding figure of the so-called metaphysical poetry movement dwells in this 6/8/6/8 lined quatrain of stanzas on love the other topic on which his well deserved 'master' poet' reputation famously rests.His analytical mind draws out universal truths recognised by we favoured with true love experientially our lives
*English cleric one John Donne
oneday his poetics had just begun
A master of verse so erotic
so divine & metaphysique
WCW
'this is just to say' & 'dear Bill' reply ( see above links)
The now famous three quatrain 'matter of fact' classic free verse of an everyday event.
& reply a three stanza five-liner thought to be an early example of 'found poetry' from a 'real time ' domestic note
William Carlos Wiliams in his day
noted for his 'This is just to Say'
An example of short pointed prose
guess its how 'Red Wheebarrow' arose
GUTTURAL MUSE by SEAMUS HEANEY
A classic piece of observation from a hotel window ,in just three five liners .A view of universal everyday scenes from a 'detached 'poetic viewpoint with imaginative ,yet wistful digressions of the older observer 'poet'*
*Ulster poet Seamus Heaney
ever a favourite with me
In which nostalgic childhood shines through
to become a Nobel winner too
Lyrical in beauty,dug from
the depths of the past.
A storyteller, articulate in
elegaic stanza writing words
to last.Of farm life and childhood,
deep in Irish terra firma in
which he and his poetry stood.
A delightful imagist quality
of 'as is moments' once
frozen in memory,and now
released for our delight .His
triplet,quatrain and quintain form
brings a succinctness of thought
combined with the commonplace
A Tribute to Seamus Heaney 1939-2013
Introduction
The pleasure of reading prose on a poetry collection page begins with a productive uncertainty: a familiar-looking paragraph may unfold as narrative, confession, meditation, character study, argument, dream, or densely musical description. Without conspicuous lineation directing every pause, the sentence must carry unusual responsibility. Its clauses regulate breath, its punctuation controls hesitation, and its movement determines when an image arrives or an emotion changes pressure.
As you read the community poems, expect considerable variation in scale and intention. One writer may concentrate on a single remembered gesture, while another develops a scene, a comic voice, a letter-like address, or a sequence of reflections. Some pieces may favor direct storytelling; others may heighten repetition, figurative language, or sonic patterning. Not every submission will interpret the category in precisely the same way, and that variation gives readers an opportunity to consider where prose becomes especially charged, memorable, or lyrical.
An isolated example can display one successful approach, but a collection reveals the range of available decisions. Compare how several poets begin, how long they remain within one moment, and how they move between image and explanation. Notice which pieces make paragraph shape feel spacious, intimate, urgent, or claustrophobic. Reading beyond the first example also sharpens judgment: similarities reveal shared possibilities, while differences show how strongly voice, syntax, pacing, and selection can distinguish one writer from another.
Reading Guide
Approach each piece first as an experience rather than as a test of category. The prose surface can encourage fast, informational reading, but the most rewarding work often asks for slower attention. Sentences and paragraphs may be doing work that lineation performs elsewhere: organizing breath, delaying disclosure, accumulating detail, and creating turns. When comparing community poems, observe not only what each writer says but how the movement of thought has been shaped.
- The opening contract: Notice whether the first sentence offers a scene, voice, question, claim, or disturbance. What expectation does it establish, and does the rest of the piece deepen or productively overturn that expectation?
- Sentence pressure: Track where clauses lengthen, contract, interrupt one another, or arrive in fragments. Does the syntax enact calm reflection, breathless urgency, confusion, intimacy, or control more effectively than the subject alone could?
- Paragraph movement: Treat each paragraph break as a meaningful threshold. Does it signal a change in time, speaker, emotional temperature, or perspective? Compare whether other poets use paragraphs as scenes, stages of thought, or deliberate silences.
- Sound beneath the surface: Listen for recurring consonants, vowels, internal echoes, and repeated phrases. Do these patterns quietly unify the writing, or do they become so prominent that they compete with the natural authority of the voice?
- Image and explanation: Mark places where concrete detail gives way to interpretation. Does the writer trust an object, gesture, setting, or sensory impression to carry meaning, or explain an emotion before the image has gathered force?
- Narrative distance: Ask how close the voice stands to the event. Is the speaker reliving, observing, confessing, inventing, or reconsidering? How does that distance affect credibility and emotional intensity?
- The final resonance: Notice whether the ending resolves an action, returns to an image, changes the meaning of an earlier sentence, or deliberately leaves pressure unresolved. What remains active in the reader after the final punctuation?
Browse several poems with one of these elements in mind, then reread your favorites aloud. Comparison makes subtle differences in timing, tonal control, and sentence music easier to hear.
Writing Tips
Begin a prose draft by finding movement rather than merely finding a topic. A useful subject contains change: a memory becomes less certain, an ordinary object gathers emotional weight, a speaker revises a judgment, or a scene exposes something previously concealed. The form offers substantial freedom, but that freedom places greater pressure on selection and sentence design. A paragraph-shaped draft is not automatically finished simply because it occupies the page convincingly.
- Choose material that benefits from continuity: Consider experiences in which thought, observation, and action need to flow into one another. A sustained recollection, interior monologue, encounter, or unfolding description can gain force when the reader is carried forward without frequent visual interruption.
- Establish a center of gravity: Decide what image, question, conflict, or emotional contradiction holds the piece together. Freedom can encourage digression; a strong center allows associative movement without making the draft feel accidental.
- Build paragraphs as units of discovery: Give each paragraph a task beyond containing sentences. One might establish the physical world, another complicate the speaker's understanding, and another alter the emotional stakes. Break a paragraph when the mind or scene genuinely turns, not merely when the block looks long.
- Vary sentence architecture purposefully: Long sentences can accumulate impressions, imitate obsession, or postpone a difficult recognition. Short sentences can interrupt that flow with certainty, shock, or refusal. Repeatedly using the same length and structure often produces monotony rather than coherence.
- Compose for the ear without forcing ornament: Use internal echoes, consonant clusters, vowel patterns, and recurring key words to create texture. Obvious rhyme or heavily decorated phrasing can sound imposed if the speaker's situation does not support it. Read aloud to locate both music and strain.
- Let images perform intellectual work: Choose details that affect the speaker's understanding, not details included solely for prettiness. An image becomes structurally valuable when it returns altered, contradicts a claim, or makes an abstract emotion physically apprehensible.
- Protect the voice from over-explanation: Beginners often narrate an event and then tell the reader exactly what it means. Test whether a gesture, omission, tonal shift, or charged object can communicate part of that meaning more powerfully. Direct explanation is useful when it advances thought rather than repeats evidence.
- Earn the ending: Avoid attaching a generalized moral or dramatic declaration that the preceding language has not prepared. The final sentence may narrow, open outward, echo the beginning, or introduce a revealing contradiction, but it should change the pressure of what came before.
During revision, print or display the draft as a continuous reading experience and mark every place where attention weakens. Tighten redundant explanation, replace interchangeable images, and vary syntax where the rhythm becomes mechanical. Then read the piece aloud twice: once at a conversational pace and once slowly enough to hear every punctuation choice. The stronger version will preserve natural authority while making each pause, sound, paragraph shift, and final cadence feel intentional.
Interesting Facts
- A familiar page shape can conceal intricate timing. Readers may initially move through a paragraph as ordinary discourse, so a carefully delayed verb, interrupted clause, or sudden short sentence can produce an unusually strong surprise.
- Paragraph breaks can function as both silence and argument. The space between blocks may mark elapsed time, a withheld response, or a change in consciousness. Two writers can use the same visual separation to create either calm reflection or emotional rupture.
- Length changes psychological pressure. A single compact block may feel concentrated, secretive, or claustrophobic, while several paragraphs can permit narrative development and reconsideration. Neither effect follows automatically; sentence rhythm determines how the space is experienced.
- Repetition can seem less announced than it does in a refrain. Because recurring language is embedded within sentences, readers may absorb its pattern before consciously identifying it. That delayed recognition can make a repeated word feel obsessive, haunting, comic, or inevitable.
- The plainest sentence may carry the greatest weight. After a passage rich in imagery or syntactic expansion, an unadorned statement can restore emotional credibility and create contrast. Heightened language often becomes more effective when it has something restrained to press against.
- Side-by-side reading exposes hidden architecture. Browse the poems in this collection and compare how writers distribute scene, reflection, dialogue, description, and silence. The shared prose surface makes differences in voice and pacing especially visible.
Popular Themes
Subject matter changes how prose movement is felt. A reflective theme may welcome long, unfolding sentences, while danger or comedy may benefit from abrupt turns and tightly controlled timing. The subjects below are literary possibilities rather than a statistical popularity ranking; each becomes effective only when its language and structure support its emotional demands.
- Memory and family: Prose can follow the mind as it moves between present observation and remembered detail. Ordinary objects, repeated sayings, and domestic gestures can reveal affection, conflict, or uncertainty without requiring a complete family history.
- Love and intimacy: The closeness of a speaking voice can resemble confession, conversation, or an unsent letter. Sentence rhythm allows desire, hesitation, resentment, and tenderness to coexist before the speaker reaches a settled conclusion.
- Loss and mortality: Grief rarely proceeds in a neat emotional sequence. Paragraphs can hold recollection, denial, physical detail, and reflection together, while shifts in syntax register the mind's attempts to approach what remains difficult to name.
- Nature and place: Sustained description can move beyond scenery by showing how perception changes over time. Weather, animals, landscapes, or seasonal details become consequential when they influence memory, decision, mood, or the speaker's sense of scale.
- Everyday life: Meals, school rooms, work, music, sports, and routine journeys offer recognizable surfaces beneath which tension can develop. The challenge is to select details that transform familiarity rather than merely catalogue it.
- Humor and absurdity: Conventional sentence flow can establish a reasonable tone while events become increasingly strange. Understatement, delayed information, precise repetition, and a well-timed final sentence can sharpen comic effect.
- War and social witness: Prose can place observation beside reflection, allowing public events to be encountered through particular bodies, voices, places, and consequences. Specificity helps prevent large subjects from becoming abstract declarations.
As you read the community poems, compare writers who address similar subjects. One may rely on scene, another on meditation, another on an intimate speaking voice. Those differences show how form does not merely contain a theme; it determines how the reader enters, experiences, and remembers it.
Editorial Insights
The central artistic tension lies between a familiar textual surface and a heightened demand for attention. A prose-shaped piece may look conversational, narrative, or explanatory, yet memorable work makes every sentence carry more than information. The language must remain readable while generating pressure through rhythm, implication, image, and sequence. Too much ordinary exposition can flatten the experience; too much ornament can make the voice sound manufactured. The strongest writing finds a register in which clarity and intensity strengthen rather than cancel each other.
Structure feels necessary when it enacts the subject. A long, accumulating sentence may embody panic, appetite, wonder, or obsessive recollection; a clipped series may suggest shock, resistance, or emotional exhaustion. Paragraph divisions can register changes of time, consciousness, or authority. These choices matter because the reader cannot rely on prominent lineation to announce emphasis. If the piece is placed into one block merely as packaging, its shape contributes little. If syntax and paragraph movement reproduce the way the speaker perceives or avoids an experience, structure becomes inseparable from meaning.
Editors and attentive readers notice when craft elements cooperate. An image introduced early may return with altered significance. A casual voice may fracture when it reaches the fact it has been circling. Sound may quietly bind distant sentences, while punctuation controls how quickly the reader recognizes a change. Common weaknesses arise when the writer substitutes poetic-sounding adjectives for exact perception, forces rhyme into otherwise natural speech, repeats a mechanical sentence pattern, or explains every implication. Another frequent problem is insufficient development: the draft offers an anecdote or attractive image but does not let it alter the speaker's understanding.
Individuality remains visible through selection and syntax. Two poets can describe the same kitchen, farewell, storm, or childhood incident and create entirely different experiences by choosing different sensory evidence, narrative distance, tonal restraint, and order of disclosure. This is why comparing multiple community poems is so valuable. One example may make a particular strategy seem essential; several reveal that quality depends less on a single approved manner than on the precision with which each writer aligns voice, pacing, imagery, and emotional movement.
Read, Write & Share
Read beyond the first example and let several community poems challenge your sense of what prose can accomplish in a poetry setting. Compare how different writers shape sentences, manage paragraphs, reveal emotion, and bring an experience to rest. When a piece holds your attention, leave a thoughtful comment about a particular image, tonal turn, rhythmic choice, or ending.
Then try your own approach. Choose material that needs sustained movement, revise it for sound and pressure, and publish the finished work on PoetrySoup. Your interpretation can become part of the continuing conversation among readers and writers exploring the form.
Collection Statistics
This collection contains 12054 poems, providing many opportunities to compare how writers handle voice, sentence movement, imagery, narrative, and closure. Within a collection of this size, poets may follow familiar conventions, adapt them to suit particular subjects, or challenge expectations about how a prose piece should create poetic intensity. Reading across multiple entries offers a broader view than any single example can provide.
Sub Categories
Read wonderful prose poetry on the following sub-topics:
christmas, death, dog, family, food, friends, funny, kids, life, love, music, nature, school, sports, war
and more.
Definition | What is Prose in Poetry?
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.