The Campaign for More Prose!

Do you like to write short stories? Do you like me find it more satisfying to tell your tale without the restraints and rules of poetry? If so, do you sometimes feel that your work is has landed on a tiny uninhabited island lost in an ocean of poems? I do.

I get my inspiration from several different prompt sites, and usually when I look through the posts linked to those sites I find that my work is the only piece of prose, or at best one of just two or three.

And it gets worse because whilst a poem, no matter how good or bad,  always attracts a far larger readership if the numbers of comments are anything to go by. As for me, I usually comment on every contribution even I if haven’t a clue what the writer is going on about. (Go on, admit it - you do it too!)

I often wonder why that should be. Whilst history has provided us with many fine poets, they are vastly outnumbered by writers of stories written in prose form. Look in your average high street book shop and compare the different amounts of shelf space given to the two genres. Look over the shoulder of somebody reading a book on the train or in the park. A book of poems or a novel? And I often wonder what the vast army of poetry bloggers actually go to sleep at night having read; a couple of sonnets or a chapter or two from a gripping novel?

I’m not one for rules, particularly when I need express myself. I don’t like having formulas or patterns to write to. No, I like to create atmosphere by surprising the reader with sudden staccato bursts mixed with gliding phrases all in one piece.

If you occasionally drop into my blog you will know that I too sometimes put a poem together. In fact I have a poetry site which I call ‘No Rhyme or Reason, the ramblings of a reluctant poet’. And whenever I post a poem to a site instead of story, even if it’s dull as ditch water, it gets the comments rolling in in far greater numbers than a short story would that I've slaved over for hours.

Now, I know only too well that if I'd written this rant in verse it would have gained more attention, but that would only be hypocritical! After all, I’m flying the flag for prose! Join me in my crusade! Display our little badge with pride! CAMP it up!