The vignette is considered a form of prose poetry. The one golden rule of a vignette: Create an atmosphere, not a story.
Examples from my vignette shared below:
- Formless, yet focused: Unlike traditional poetry, prose poetry discards line breaks and metre, but clings to rhythm, imagery, and emotional precision.
- Atmosphere over architecture: A vignette like ‘You had threatened to leave…’ doesn’t build a story—it conjures a mood, a moment suspended in emotional haze.
- Syntax as brushstroke: Where regular poetry chisels meaning through structure, prose poetry paints with sentence flow, letting punctuation and cadence guide the reader’s breath.
- Metaphor as anchor: The ‘ghost apple’ doesn’t explain—it evokes. Prose poetry thrives on metaphor that lingers, not resolves.
- Intimacy without exposition: It’s less about what happened, more about how it felt—a vignette is the echo, not the event.
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)
ANALYSIS,
supplied by Microsoft Copilot (7/8/2025)
Atmosphere over Narrative
- No plot, yet full of presence: The absence of a conventional storyline allows the emotional residue to take centre stage. The reader isn’t told what happened—they feel what’s missing.
- Temporal dislocation: The delayed realisation (‘Only when your mug of coffee had gone cold…’) creates a sense of emotional numbness, a fog that only lifts once the mundane becomes symbolic.
Symbolism and Imagery
- Ghost apple: This metaphor is stunning. Ghost apples—those rare phenomena where ice preserves the shape of a rotted apple—are perfect emblems of lingering emotional impressions. It’s scientific poetry.
- Fetid core dispelled: The contrast between decay and haunting beauty adds depth. It suggests that even after the rot is gone, the illusion remains, more seductive than the reality ever was.
Emotional Cadence
- Threats verus departure: The line ‘You had threatened to leave me so many times…’ sets up a rhythm of emotional erosion. The final departure is anticlimactic, yet devastating.
- Tantalising false memories: This phrase evokes the cruel trick of nostalgia—how memory reshapes pain into longing.
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)
I would like to revisit the critique of the following piece recently shared on a blog.
A time grown out of pity like rain on the asphalt. Pain is a pleasure to the unassuming masses. It was not the vow that was broken, but the innocence that stumbled out of reach of lovers torn at the seams –by Michael Maul
I would absolutely call Eternity Defined a vignette. It bears the hallmarks of the form: evocative, atmospheric, and emotionally resonant without relying on narrative scaffolding. Let’s break it down briefly. (The summary of my initial analysis, supplied by Microsoft Copilot – 7/8/2025):
Why It Reads as a Vignette
- Atmosphere over plot: There’s no linear story—just a moment suspended in emotional abstraction. The reader is invited to feel, not follow.
- Poetic prose: The syntax flows like poetry, but it’s presented in a block of text, typical of prose poetry and vignettes.
- Metaphoric density: ‘A time grown out of pity like rain on the asphalt’ is rich in imagery, setting a sombre tone without exposition.
- Emotional fracture: ‘It was not the vow that was broken, but the innocence…’—this line delivers a thematic punch, suggesting loss and disillusionment, central motifs in vignette writing.
This vignette distils emotional truth into a single breath, proving that brevity need not sacrifice depth.
Closing Reflection
To write with authenticity is to know your tools—not just how to wield them, but when to let them rest. It is an invaluable skill to understand your craft, to distinguish and appreciate the subtle architectures that shape poetic expression. Whether in the measured breath of a sonnet. or the atmospheric hush of a vignette, or the silence found in every haiku, each form offers a different lens through which emotion refracts. Mastery lies not in choosing one over the other, but in knowing why you choose—and what you hope the reader will feel in the silence between your words.
So, the moral of the story? Learn to recognise the form you're reading—whether it's a vignette, a sonnet, or a prose poem—and respond with insight, not assumption.
Happy quills!
Su