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These Proses A Problem Or Two
Ken Stange
Published by Two Cultures (2008)
"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Prose takes a beating in these These's experiments. Sometimes hammered into poetry, sometimes just hammered into submission, these assaults on prose by These are consistently interesting experiments."
—Anonymous reviewer in the now defunct Journal of Prosaic Findings.
"These's thesis is prose can be poetry. Yet poetry with a thesis is prose. These begs the question. In reply, the question begs These answers. It's all too confusing for this reviewer."
—Anonymous reviewer in the now defunct Illiterary Review
Two Cultures Press (2008)
ISBN: 978-0-9809273-1-3
Softcover (6x9 inches) 106 pages
Personalized signed first edition: $14
Downloadable PDF Book
(106 pages plus original cover): $3
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Serious and intelligent review in Vallum. |
| Excerpt |
FIRST PROSE: OLD THEODORE THESE IS WONT TO WHEEZE (A MEMOIR)
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My name is Theodore These. An odd name, you say? Well, don’t think it hasn’t caused me my share of trouble. I suppose all those marked with somewhat unusual names are doomed to live a childhood of mockery, and I’m sure my suffering was not unique—but that is little comfort. My suffering was intense. Not only was my name odd, my personality non-normative, but I was also cursed with asthma. The coupling of my difficult breathing with my nob girder of a name was the insipid inspiration for some very unfortunate rhymes, rhymes that followed me through many years of school. As if, in God’s vicious wisdom, that wasn’t enough of a burden for a sensitive young child, I also had a tendency to lisp when I became angry or excited—something that happened far too often. Thank heaven I was not also small, or my childhood surely would have been a playground in hell. Daily I saw what the smartasses and bullies did to the little kids in our class. I saw the bruising and
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the brutality, the vicious goosing with sticks and poignant pokes to the groin. I saw many of my classmates
dissolve into quivering masses of terror every recess when they were thrown on their own limited reserves in our unpatrolled playground. Only my size saved me from physical torture, for certainly I was a natural victim. Oh, the brutes did occasionally (and a bit nervously) attempt physical bullying with me, but only rarely, for I always struck back with such uninhibited rage that I frightened even them. Although I knew nothing about fighting, I so abhorred being touched, and flew into such a blind rage at any physical affront, I succeeded in terrifying even those thick-skulled louts of my youth. As long as the taunts were verbal and not physical, my anger remained merely anger, cut with a thick dose of humiliation—but God! if they ever dared to touch me—well then I became savage, capable of murder.
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