Summer workshop with YWP Intern Sam Aikman

What is prose poetry? 

Oxford Languages defines prose as writing in its ordinary form, without metrical structure. 

Prose is the format you most often see in novels — where the text runs margin-to-margin, without line breaks. However, unlike novels, prose poems are often short, sometimes only one or two stanzas, and focus on language and imagery rather than plot or narrative. 

Why write prose poetry? 

Prose poetry allows for freedom and experimentation in a way that other forms don't because there's more space to focus on the meaning, lyricism, and imagery of the work rather than its aesthetics. It’s also a great way to start a writing flow if you're ever feeling stuck or in a “slump" because the form appears very simple. 

As you'll see in the examples below, the style of prose poems can vary greatly: some use run-on sentences or repetition to create rhythm, others use numbers, parenthesis, or forward slashes to insert pauses, still others utilize a plain uncomplicated paragraph. 

Things to try:

1. Use one of the examples below as a format or inspiration for your own poem— notice the tone and language of the poem. What specific parts do you like and why? Try to capture this mood, tone, or style in your own piece. 
2. Take one of your older pre-written poems and put it into prose form. What can you change? What parts do you most like and how do they shift in this new form? Do any words or phrases stand out now as clunky or out of place?
3. Pick a sentence from one of your favorite books or poems. Use this as the first line of your prose poem— write from there. 
4. Pick an image from YWP or online (I find photographs and paintings are best for this exercise), then write a prose poem inspired by the image. 

Important note: if using images, lines, or full poems as inspiration or quotes in your work make sure to credit the author, artist, etc.

What are some examples of prose poetry? 

• Nostalgia by Matthew Minicucci

• It Is Maybe Time to Admit That Michael Jordan Definitely Pushed Off by Hanif Abdurraqib

• On Moving by Jane Huffman

• Also search here on poets.org database for more examples 

• The following example, Unbecoming by Sam Aikman, was inspired by this photo by Trinity Vu, a friend and fellow student at Pratt Institute:

UNBECOMING

By Sam Aikman, YWP Intern

The streets have teeth and we hold our fingers with enough space for the others and drink cider on a corner where the ceiling above us blinks blue-blue-blue onto her tonsil-pink dress and someday I hope I never have to see it in a suitcase, all the lace piled on itself like a bowl of noodles; I have been waiting for her to find that tab in her memory— sitting knee to knee at a tight table, the broth steaming our faces dewy and familiar. She never carries a bag and it makes me wonder who locks the doors at night, whether she’ll wait at the window to catch piano babble in the courtyard, if she’s seen pigeons scatter (linseeds on linoleum), ever noticed how we lay with our eyes turned up at night but not to the sky. On Tuesday she crouches in the dust by the curb, traces her toe through it, looks up glistening in the swollen light, shoulders rounded with sleep and waiting under both of us is the hour she leaves— a final morning when he wears his hair above his ears and holds his fear behind him and she cries in the bathroom before reapplying mascara. She’s never walked barefoot in this city but today she has the desire to untie her sneakers so they don’t echo down the stairs on the way out. So this is not the last sound he hears of her. Somewhere along the way, they have both become birds in nets and today it’s all wings in wire, feathers and string, the unopened sound of a jar on the counter with nothing to fill. She sips but can’t swallow, he watches for the cab from the stoop, the sap of morning yellowing behind the stoic facades up the street. She wonders how to break cleanly, how this will seem when it’s over. There’s movement under the signal light, an engine accelerating, and he looks the other way as she goes— suddenly has the desire to wedge his nails on that sunrise and pull, to watch what arises in the final seconds of proximity, when they’re both undone in the same city. 

Header image: Berlin, Germany. Photo by Sam Aikman, YWP Intern

Find out more about Sam here!