I suppose it's useful in designating writing that tends to come from personal experience, work that delineates an "I," but it's a loose lasso, one which may rope certain poems by one poet and not others.

Writing a poem is always a process of subtracting: you start with all of language available to you, and you choose a smaller field.

I don't think all poems need to be written in conversational language - those are often great poems but there should also be poems of incoherent bewilderment and muddled mystery.

I think of poetry as a very inclusive term. Still, it's interesting that people want to make the distinction. I love the magazine Double Room for that reason (contributors have to write about their ideas on the prose poem/flash fiction).

What I like about prose poems is that they seem to make people uncomfortable - people want to define them, justify them, attack them. Prose poems are natural fence-sitters.

Poetic success is when you write a poem that makes you excited and bewildered and aglow.

Having my poems set to music by Eric Moe has completely knocked my socks off.