I found it important to note that the book states, "a prose poem will central attention to the language and its pattern of sound, whereas a short-short story will be first of all structured on the narrative arc conflict-crisis-resolution."
Based on this definition the Imaginative Writing, book gives us, I think this particular "prose poem," actually falls on to the short-short story category provided by the book. There is a very clear and prominent conflict to crisis to resolution. The initial conflict being that the Japanese woman (the antagonist) confesses to having a double mastectomy. Then the crisis occurs when the man rejects her, due to her condition. The resolution, not so positive for the man (the protagonist), is when the man realizes that in the bowl under the rose petals were a bunch of dead bees.
Going back to what I had stated before, I was shocked at how the man clearly could not handle the woman's initial beauty, after she had confessed to her one defect, one that obviously was caused by disease, yet he showed no empathy. I think the bowl is very symbolic to the fact the the rose petals were what he once saw in the Japanese woman; all this beauty and radiance, but once opening the truth, his image was darkened, hence the dead bees. Even thought this story is so short, there is a lot to be understood and commented on regarding the human condition.
I was actually under the impression that this was a short story haha, so I learned something with your post. I really liked this paticular passage as well. I think it is easy to judge the characters from an outside perspective, but if we found ourselves in the same situation it might not be so cut and dry... we like to think that we are not at all shallow, and who knows, maybe you are not, but I think that our society provokes atleast an extent of it in most of us. Good interpretation of the ending too.. sound like a good anaylisis to me.
ReplyDeleteMaxine, how does the poet effectively get these things across to the reader?
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