Short, short stories; micro fiction; nano fiction... whatever you want to call a story that will fit onto a single side of paper, a screen, a matchbook, anywhere - so long as it's small
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I'll willfully disagree with you, sir. To class Hemingway's story as on the prosaic rather than poetic side of the threshold suggests that there is some kind of quantifiable line between the two and that each piece of text can be categorised according to its quantitative use of such qualitative rhetorical techniques. Bearing this in mind - and assuming that it would be difficult if not impossible to reach a consensus on one, let alone more, texts, using this method - isn't the line between poetry and prose more of a structural one, concerned with form rather than content? Otherwise the epithet "poetic" implies a superiority to the comparatively formless, bland, functional prose (of course the word "prosaic" has a pejorative nuance, but etymologically it is presumably the counterpoint to "poetic"). While the instructions included with your Paracetamol or your course handbook can be described as nothing other than prose, according to this argument it would be their form, situation and physical manifestation which qualified them as such, rather than functionality or non-ambiguity. (Having drafted policy documents and service level agreements I can now see how the kind of text that is designed to be clear and mono-semic is actually as ingenious and intricate in its lack of meaning as other writing is in its meaning - similarly, I've read a lot of poetry which hasn't got much going for it other than a bit of enjambement).
I wrote this about six hours ago when I got to work… I can’t remember if I’d finished or whether I was going to say anything else. Um.
I wrote this about six hours ago when I got to work… I can’t remember if I’d finished or whether I was going to say anything else. Um.
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