Writing: Short Prose Forms

Undergraduate – The prose poem and its siblings the short short story and the brief personal essay are the wild cards in the writer’s deck; their identities change according to the dealer. We will consider a wide range of forms, approaches, and styles, spanning the last 175 years (with some precursors). In addition to works in English, we will read translations from the French, Spanish, and other languages.

Short Prose Forms is a “writing seminar.” Sessions will be divided between seminar discussions and modified workshops of student writing. This is a two-hour class but we will likely run over to accommodate time for workshopping, so please do not schedule anything else for a half-hour after the scheduled ending time.

Requirements include: Three or four short prose pieces (of any kind, as long as they are prose, short, and a complete unit); several one-draft exercises; a brief classroom presentation; participation in class discussions; punctual attendance; and a close reading of handouts, which will include works by such authors as:
Matsuo Basho, Charles Baudelaire, Thomas Bernhard, Aloysius Bertrand, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Anne Carson, Gianni Celati, Luis Cernuda, Bernard Cooper, Lydia Davis, Russell Edson, Eduardo Galeano, Lyn Hejinian, David Ignatow, Max Jacob, Juan Ramon Jimenez, Joseph Joubert, Franz Kafka, Yasunari Kawabata, Etgar Keret, Clarice Lispector, Stephane Mallarme, Czeslaw Milosz, Harryette Mullen, Ron Padgett, Edgar Allan Poe, Francis Ponge, Arthur Rimbaud, Nathalie Sarraute, Sei Shonagon, Charles Simic, Mark Strand, Luisa Valenzuela, Diane Williams, James Wright, Mikhail Zoshchenko.

See the Writing MFA Program page for course information and requirements.