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Best of Both Worlds: 5 Poets Who Blur the Boundaries Between Poetry and Fiction
By Laura S. Marshall | Friday, April 9, 2021
By Laura S. Marshall
Friday, April 9, 2021
Hybrid poems inhabit the borderland between poetry and other forms of writing. These works -- neither solely poetry nor fiction -- give us all the experiences and feelings of both poems and stories. They offer moments that move us; scenes that transport us; images that disorient, reorient, transform our understanding of our own lives and stories.
They do this in their own way, by relying on techniques and forms from both poetry and fiction to weave story and sensory information together in a satisfying "best of both worlds" blend.
Here is a handful of poets whose work lives in that liminal space between poetry and fiction -- and invites us to take up residence there too:
Natalie Diaz: "They Don't Love You Like I Love You"
Diaz often interlaces narrative elements into her poems, and experiments with shape and formal poetic techniques, pushing the boundaries of poetry and fiction. She is the author of Postcolonial Love Poem and When My Brother Was an Aztec.
Matthea Harvey: "The Backyard Mermaid"
Harvey's hybrid / prose poems are beautifully playful, often turning reality on its head in both funny and poignant ways. She is the author of Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form, Sad Little Breathing Machine, Modern Life, and If the Tabloids Are True What Are You.
Brenda Shaughnessy: "The Home Team"
Many of Shaughnessy's poems hold fictional worlds that feel so real, with moments of cinematic vision that put emotion in center frame. She is the author of So Much Synth, Our Andromeda, Human Dark with Sugar, Interior with Sudden Joy, and The Octopus Museum.
Richard Siken: "The Language of the Birds"
Siken often twirls stories into his poems, allowing them to swirl around each other and around the reader, building myths that linger in the air like smoke. He is the author of Crush and War of the Foxes.
James Tate: "It Happens Like This"
Tate was a master of the narrative poem: He used surreal elements of story to amuse and then surprise readers with deep observations. His many books include The Government Lake, The Ghost Soldiers, Worshipful Company of Fletchers, Selected Poems, and Distance from Loved Ones.
For a deeper exploration of narrative in poetry, fiction, hybrids, and other forms, check out Laura's Summer 2021 JYWO writing lab, "Stories that Sustain". And for a new perspective on character, sign up for Laura's craft session "Not Second Banana".