Looks Like Prose But Moves Like a Poem Workshop with Jordan Stempleman

In this workshop, we’ll explore the prose poem as a kind of contradiction: writing that appears, at first glance, to be straightforward prose but, on closer inspection, moves according to the associative logic of poetry. We’ll look at how poets bring far-flung distances into contact and use transitions and phrasing to undercut both the writer’s and the reader’s expectations. Beginning with five completely unrelated sentences, participants will find ways to connect what seems unrelated, building a new world within the old one. Along the way, we’ll pay particular attention to sentence variation, voice, imagery, and the possibilities that emerge when we leave the prose a little drafty. By the end of the workshop, participants will have drafted a new prose poem that almost tells it straight while telling it slant.

This session is part of the 2026 Writers Conference. Register for this two-day event.

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