Thinking about genre
And how to break the rules
Hi Friends!
Not every poem is a memoir—but every line has a tiny piece of my soul.
When I published my first haiku book, Pirate Haiku, I was surprised to realize that many booksellers wouldn’t allow me to list it in a fiction category and in the poetry category.
Their reasoning was poetry is a non-fiction category and a book cannot be both fiction and non-fiction.
This is obviously untrue. Lynda Barry’s beautiful and brilliant autobiofictionalography, One! Hundred! Demons! is one such book.
In the west, we tend to treat poetry as a form of memoir-and often it is. But often, it isn’t.
Genres and labels are a way for booksellers and libraries to organize things. Organization makes it easier to match the right book with the right patron.
However, I’m a deviant. I love to lurk in the dark places between categories. This tendency does make it harder for my work to be discoverable—however, it’s worth the trouble.
Not every poem is a memoir—but every line has a tiny piece of my soul.
Be the weird you want to see in the world!
Cheers,
Jason
How odd, I never really thought about poetry as fiction or NF until now.
That opening (and closing) line is a poem in itself.
That's flabbergasting that you couldn't be listed in two categories. Have these book sellers never heard of Shel Silverstein, E.E. Cummings or Charles Bukowski???? Furthermore, these booksellers obviously aren't too savvy in marketing if they don't know that a multi-category listing has a higher chance of making a sale. Keep on truckin' Jason and you'll eventually find the right marketer.