Kirby's Wright's Weblog

Under the Radar Interview

M: You also include prose pieces with the poetry. What makes you decide to write in prose vs. poetry? What do you like/dislike about each medium?

KW: I like poetry because it teaches economy as well as lyricism. What I don't like about it is being a prisoner of the line. And I don’t like being typecast as just a poet. I was told by the late poet William Dickey to learn “how to cut away some of the underbrush” from my poetry, but I think the underbrush can be interesting too. I wanted to experiment with things like narration, dialogue, and surrealism in a single piece and the prose poetic form worked well. Remember those poetic pieces in-between the stories in Hemingway’s IN OUR TIME? Well, I suppose it was him who gave me permission to write sudden poetic fictions like “Love From a Distance,” “Retirement and the Home Boy,” and “Shiatsu.” Also, you can cheat a bit with prose poetry by laying it out so that certain words show up at the ends and beginnings of lines for dramatic impact. I received GREAT encouragement from the poet Jerome Rothenberg to continue writing prose poetry after he read something I’d written about Galileo going blind from staring at the moon too much through his telescope while naming and charting the various Seas.