Beyond Broken Lines: What Makes a Verse Novel?

[jeannineatkins]

A few days ago at the Associated Writing Program conference in Boston, I was lucky to attend several panels about writing poetry. The question of what a verse novel is was raised in a session called “It Could Always Be Verse.” Helen Frost, author of the forthcoming SALT, answered poetically, comparing verse and prose to water and land, and saying

Comments

[ext_858379]

...and what revelatory objects your bring down from that attic, Jeannine! This is my favorite post I've read about AWP, so thank you. Verse novels seem as varied as any other genre, and that, I think, is as it should be. xo

[jeannineatkins]

Yes, I agree about it being a rich form: we don't expect novels to be alike, so why shouldn't verse novels astonish us? Wish you had been at AWP! Now I'm dreaming about the Dodge Festival...