OokamiKasumi
Author of Quality Smut
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2021
- Messages
- 398
- Points
- 133
But that mimosa grove--the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honeydew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since--until at last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another.
Or
A contorted memory of how they give artificial respiration pumps Janice's cold wet arms in frantic rhythmic hugs; under her clenched lids great scarlet prayers arise, wordless, monotonous, and she seems to be clasping the knees of a vast third person whose name, Father, Father, beats against her head like physical blows. Though her wild heart bathes the universe in red, no spark kindles in the space between her arms; for all of her pouring prayers she doesn't feel the faintest tremor of an answer in the darkness against her. Her sense of the third person with them widens enormously, and she knows, knows, while knocks sound at the door, that the worst thing that has ever happened to any woman in the world has happened to her.
How do I write like this!? These two passages are literally perfect.
This style of writing is called Poetic Prose.
-- According to Google's AI...
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Poetic Prose, also known as prose poetry, is a form of writing that combines the lyrical and expressive qualities of poetry with the structure and flow of prose. It's characterized by the use of poetic devices like imagery, metaphor, and rhythm, while still being written in sentences and paragraphs rather than lines and stanzas.
In Detail:
Appearance:
Prose poetry appears as a standard paragraph or block of text, unlike traditional poetry which uses line breaks and stanzas.
Poetic Devices:
Despite its prose structure, prose poetry employs poetic techniques such as:
- Imagery: Vivid and evocative descriptions that appeal to the senses.
- Metaphor: A figure of speech that compares two unlike things without using "like" or "as".
- Rhythm: The musical flow of words, created through stress and emphasis.
- Repetition: The recurrence of words, phrases, or ideas for emphasis or effect.
- Compression: Using fewer words to convey a strong meaning.
- Figures of Speech: Other literary devices like similes, personification, and alliteration.
While it adheres to the grammatical structure of prose, prose poetry prioritizes artistic expression and emotional impact over straightforward narrative or exposition.
Relationship to Poetry:
Prose poetry is distinct from traditional poetry in its lack of line breaks, but it shares the core characteristics of poetry in its focus on language, imagery, and rhythm.
Examples of prose poems can be found in the works of various authors including; Charles Baudelaire, Gertrude Stein, and Walt Whitman.
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If this is the style of writing you want to use, then I would advise looking up How to Write Poetry.
You may also want to get a Dreamer's Dictionary to become familiar with the Language of Subconscious Symbolism. Mainly because that's pretty much what you're going to be writing, almost solid Symbolism: from Settings, to Characters, to Actions and their Consequences. Reading psychiatrist Carl Jung on the Collective Unconscious will also give you insights here. If you're any good at interpreting Dreams, and reading Tarot, this will also help.
Your most valuable tool for your writing however, will be connecting with your Emotions to understand your own feelings, and how you personally symbolize them. After all, that's what Poetry is: Feelings expressed through Symbolism.
Sadly, this is all the help I can provide because I suck at poetry, mainly because I suck at expressing, or even identifying, my own feelings. In my stories, I have to cheat by writing in Body Language to signal what emotions my characters feel.