Between Two Poets

My most recent reading of Waterborne was at Butler University on 4 December. The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program held its first Annual Alumni Reading. I was honored to be a part of this inaugural event.

I read with two other authors. While this is not uncommon, for the first time I shared the reading stage with only poets. This was an arrangement with which I was most pleased, for I am not simply open to, but I invite my craft to be informed, even infiltrated by poetry.

Over the past fifteen years I’ve become a reader of poetry. I have found poetry brings a sensibility and aesthetic to my prose—elements I can find nowhere else. Readers have said Waterborne is a poetic novel. One reader asked me if it is prose or narrative poetry. This is a very high compliment.

My hope was in my reading between two poets this sensibility could be lifted from the page and brought to the ear. Perhaps, if no one had mentioned I wrote prose, a listener or two may have thought they were listening to three poets. Of course, I know few listeners hold such preoccupations. These are mine. Put simply, it is my hope the best of the craft of creative writing—both poetry and prose—was on display.