Gary Jackson

Engl 224

Exercise

If you think of a prose poem as a highly compressed story, you can do a lot of work in a very limited amount of space. For example, Robert Hass' “A Story About the Body” tells a complete story – filled with characters, conflict, concrete details and a specific setting in less than a page. So for this exercise, I want you to write a prose poem using the following formula.

Prose Poem in 6 sentences:

1 st sentence establishes main character, setting, mood and desire.

2 nd establish 2 nd character.

3 rd establish the relationship between the two and reinforce their wants.

4 th scene with dialogue that establishes if they will get what the want.

5 th Resolve their relationship.

6 th End with an arresting image.

Also consider, what makes a poem, well…a poem. Since you can't rely on line breaks, focus on other poetic elements such as metaphor, simile, paradox, alliteration, assonance and overall rhythm.

Finally, this exercise isn't intended to generate a near-perfect poem – think of it as an exercise in extreme compression.