“Why Prose.?” -Angela Doll Carlson

When I began to write poetry I thought the process consisted of throwing words on a page. I thought to simply say exactly what I thought and meant, with line breaks and punctuation placed here and there, or, perhaps not at all, was a poem. Poems were mud pies. How hard can it be?

I like mud pies and I wrote them for a very long time. But mud pies could not feed me or anyone else. I would write them and admire them there on the page all while washing my hands, drying them on soft towels and getting back to the business of daily living. Those mud pies were not memorable except for occasional smudges I’d find on the floor or in between my fingers. The makings of the mud pies were what remained. And if I showed them to people, I was met with a pat on the head or words of mild encouragement.

“It’s a very nice mud pie,” they might say.

When I began to study poetry and wander into writing deeper and longer works I found myself less likely to use mud alone. I studied the great poets, some I knew already like Poe and Dickinson, others were unknown to me at that time, Cummings, Bukowski and Plath. I veered into the ancient with Rumi; I skated shakily into the modern with Nikki Giovanni and Mary Oliver. I found my heart expand with each new discovery. I worked those mud pies well, graduating to flour, to pastry, to rolling pin, to oven.

Instead of showing simply muddy hands and inedible pie plates I offered now scent and taste- blueberry, lemon, key lime. Meat pies were within reach adding texture and form.

Poetry is more than words on a page. It is depth and reaching, aching and mercy. Poetry says all the things you mean to say and more. It tells, it shows, it succeeds and it fails. As poets, we allow for that. We rely on that. We hope for that.

I began to write prose as a form as an adult, when my kids were finally in school. I began to use my poetic leanings and knead the words into longer thoughts, sentences stretched out like braids of dough. I would thread them one through the other in story. For me, writing non-fiction short form personal essay was the path of poetry into prose. And for me, the path yields the stuff that fills the banquet table I mean to set. I want it to be beautiful and rich, satisfying and intriguing.

Writing provides an insight into myself that I need. I want to read the words on the page and find in them some new discovery, some new depth I did not recognize before. I resonate with the words of author Joan Didion when she states, “I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” Writing poetry started that process for me, writing longer form intensifies that process and brings it more toward completion.

Spending time on the mobile or web platform of Prose gives me an opportunity to experiment and get immediate feedback, something that most of us as writers do not have the chance to receive. We are often so isolated in our writing. Who can understand that desire to make mud pies? Who can stand to wait long enough for us to move into pastry and meat? It’s a long process and it takes nurturing and care, waiting for the dough to rise, the heat to bake, the air to cool. Prose allows us to share our work in progress and to share in that process along with fellow writers. It is a sort of online writer’s group, a community of support and encouragement no matter where one falls on the pie-making spectrum.

Why Prose? Because we are makers and the world is hungry.

- Angela Doll Carlson, A.K.A. @mrsmetaphor