The Sharpener

The Sharpener

Share this post

The Sharpener
The Sharpener
Craft: Five Things People Misunderstand about Prose Poems

Craft: Five Things People Misunderstand about Prose Poems

O.E.D., Edson, Herbert, Shumaker, Hass, "Purple Death"

Sean Singer's avatar
Sean Singer
May 14, 2022
∙ Paid
4

Share this post

The Sharpener
The Sharpener
Craft: Five Things People Misunderstand about Prose Poems
2
Share

Students in my classes often get fussy about genres, categories, or identifying if a text is a poem, or something else. Genre really means sort or kind. Genres change over time, recombine, and are socially inferred. Genre distinctions are really just tools by which we can talk about texts; there is nothing meaningful about them in and of themselves.

Aris…

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to The Sharpener to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 Sean Singer
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share