Oh, you just have to love a good argument about WCW. There's a reason he shares initials with World Championship Wrestling.
Yes. I do feel "The Red Wheelbarrow" is a poem. I used to think it a terrible poem; now I merely think it a boring one.
Why is it a poem? Because as a poem, it is complete. No, he doesn't tell you what depends on the scene, but it's a complete thought.
It's not prose. Being written in complete sentences (well, complete sentence) does not turn something into prose. The entire thing, the whole damned thing, is self-contained in one sentence. You may not be impressed with what the sentence says, heck, you may even argue that it doesn't say anything, but it is complete. It isn't missing the rest of it. It doesn't need a short story tacked on to the opening sentence.
It isn't an essay. It isn't a short story. It isn't a novel. It is neither fiction nor non-fiction. It is not part of a larger whole. It is not made up of smaller fragments.
It is a poem.
And I still don't like it.
Julie
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