Beggar Woman of Naples by Max Jacob

When I lived in Naples there was always a beggar woman at the gate of my palace, to whom I would toss some coins before climbing into my carriage. One day, surprised at never being thanked, I looked at the beggar woman. Now, as I looked at her, I saw that what I had taken for a beggar woman was a wooden case painted green which contained some red earth and a few half-rotted bananas…

Survivors by Kim Addonizio

He and his lover were down to their last few T cells and arguing over who was going to die first. END_PROGRAM He wanted to be first because he did not want to have to take care of his lover’s parrot or deal with his lover’s family, which would descend on their flat after the funeral, especially the father, who had been an Army major and had tried to beat his son’s sexual orientation out of him with a belt on several occasions during adolescence; the mother, at least, would be kind but sorrowful, and secretly blame him, the survivor — he knew this from her letters, which his lover had read to him each week for the past seven years. He knew, too, that they all — father, mother, two older brothers –would disapprove of their flat, of the portrait of the two of them holding hands that a friend had painted and which hung over the bed, the Gay Freedom Day poster in the bathroom, all the absurd little knickknacks like the small plastic wind-up penis that hopped around on two feet; maybe, after his lover died, he would put some things away, maybe he would even take the parrot out of its cage and open the window so it could join the wild ones he’d heard of, that nested in the palm trees on Delores Street, a whole flock of bright tropical birds apparently thriving in spite of the chilly Bay Area weather — he would let it go, fly off, and he would be completely alone then; dear God, he thought, let me die first, don’t let me survive him.

Early April by Robert Hass

This morning a cat – bright orange – pawing at the one patch of new grass in the sand-and tanbark-colored leaves. And last night the sapphire of the raccoon’s eyes in the beam of the flashlight. He was climbing a tree beside the house, trying to get onto the porch, I think, for a wad of oatmeal Simmered in cider from the bottom of the pan we’d left out for the birds.

 And earlier a burnished, somewhat dazed woodchuck, his coat gleaming with spring, Loping toward his burrow in the roots of a tree among the drying winter’s litter Of old leaves on the floor of the woods, when I went out to get the New York Times.

And male cardinals were whistling back and forth – sireeep, sreeep, sreeep – Sets of three sweet full notes, weaving into and out of each other like the triplet rhymes in medieval poetry, And the higher, purer notes of the tufted titmice among them, High in the trees where they were catching what they could of the early sun.

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Having read these three prose poems, try this exercise that combines the various stances of the prose poems to help you write an interesting one of your own:

Over the next days, write one prose poem composed of three parts: two short poem-stories that are unrelated but are your own and one that is someone else’s story. To help your unconscious select what you will write about for each part, come to the page with the same emotional feeling each time you write: I am lonely, I am happy, I am sad, I am disappointed, I am afraid, I am worried, I am at peace, I am mad at the world, I am mad at the politicians, I feel like I am drowning, I feel like I have just climbed a mountain, I feel like I have surfaced, etc.

For the ones that are your own, write about as Jacob does about some private thought or fancy and for the second one, write about a moment in time you catch yourself in as Hass does. Include everything you observe with your senses. When you tell someone else’s story as Addonizio does, use the third person and look for the ironies or sadly moving ideas.

To get started finding the stories:

1. Remember a time when you felt the feeling you have chosen. Think about what you saw in your peripheral vision or heard but couldn’t see and what meaning you gave the sight or sound and what you thought when you found out what it really was. When you write this first part, as Jacob does, tell where you were and what you thought before and after you knew the truth about the sound or sight.

2. Think of another time you felt the same feeling. Think of what in that time you were hearing, seeing, tasting, touching, and smelling. In describing this time, use words that keep the reader with you “narratively.” As Hass uses it, “and” is a useful word.

3. Think about a small piece of information you know about someone else’s life. See if you can expand it into at least one good paragraph that tells the story this information holds for you.

When you order the stories, put the other person’s story in the middle as part two of the three-part poem. It will probably create some movement, as if there is a path between your opening poem story and your closing one.

After you have the stories down and in order, find a title for the three-part work that highlights what you notice as you read all three together: “Saturday at 10,” or “What I See When I Remember,” or “Finding What I Know,” or anything that seems to you to unite the three parts. You can even use the feeling you were writing from as a title: I Am Afraid, I Am Drowning, I Am Free, I Have Surfaced, I Am Sad, are examples.