Mushtaque B Barq

Narrative Prose Poetry

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I am writing this piece in a layman’s diction without employing technicalities to make it easy for the art lovers. This piece of writing is purely based on my limited knowledge and hence it may evoke criticism which to me shall serve as feedback and I am keen to learn from all sources.
Prose poetry is a hybrid technique which brings at fore, a way of writing that encourages imagery of poetry and liberty from meter system. Prose poetry in nature is dual; it carries metaphors from the poetic inbox but liberates the narrative from the clutches of versification.
Let us first comprehend the necessities of prose. Prose writing is natural fiber carrying the elements like characters and plot using the conventional paragraph style and more or less conveys a story and displays the observation of a writer through the lens to screen what he intends to show to the reader.
Poetry is a special kind of writing, more technical in terms of poetic meter and versification. It is a suitable platform to perform through metaphors and imagery. What differs it from prose is generally its restrictions, although free verse and blank verse provide a bit of freedom but maintenance of rhythm is what makes it poetry, devoid of which it loses its charm.
Now let us see how these two different entities look when united on narrative canvas. Prose poetry at least in its form looks a lot like prose in paragraphs with an underlying current of images decked up by the poetic meter and by tradition it holds playful diction to enhance its flow.
Narrative prose poetry involves three basic ingredients: A formal story formulated in the casing of plot and characters, aided with rich imagery and metaphors from the poetic toolbox and a paragraph form to restrict line breaks. A prose poem is basically written in conventional sentence structure but carrying the melody of poetry. Care should be taken not to compromise the taste of poetry. This technique brings the best out of two elements of art. One making it un-poetic in form and the second retains the beauty of diction to keep its poetic pulse alive. This blend may look like a non-sense in its texture, yet it is endowed with an intricate interior like a revolt against traditional poetic form which to a modern reader and writer is still a challenge.
Let me try to explain this through a sample.

The crimson romance up there on the bleeding horizon tempts a longing, a long pending sigh caged in the bamboosled breast like peacock’s dance in the forest devoid of the audience. What forces these crystalline buttons to violate the thin line of narration, is not the dusk that calls the birds back to their nests, but an ecstasy to the artist on one hand and a chilling shiver of silence to a saint. 
Crimson romance and bleeding horizon two metaphors are aided with images of confinement as depicted through visual imagery ‘bamboosled breast’ and ‘devoid of the audience’. 

The storyline follows the proceedings at dust and paragraph format makes it look like a prose piece, but it carries poetry like a natural flow of day to day speech: ‘Calling the birds back’ and then a paradox which further adds grace to the passage.

This method is to keep at bay the conventional metrical language on one hand yet the beauty of brevity through the natural flow of ideas, on the other hand, works simultaneously, making it a more compound like mechanism rather than a mixture of unwanted stuff to distort the art. It is kind of revolt against poetic license that restricts an idea to grow in the natural form of speech, for prose is what we all understand better than poetry for its complicated connotative and sophisticated denotative undercurrents.

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