Fleshing Out Flash: Interconnectedness of Poetic Sensibilities in Micro Memoir

In his article “Rhyming Action,” Charles Baxter spotlights an element vital to the effectiveness of prose: literary echoes. Whether they be symbols, phrases, characters, or settings, these echoes reverberate within the confines of a narrative, endowing the story told with a subtle, innate rhyme that leaves readers metaphysically satisfied. Taking Baxter’s claim and applying it in practice, Fleshing Out Flash: Interconnectedness of Poetic Sensibilities in Micro Memoir aims to provide insight into how the careful composition of a collection may serve as a full course of verse that feeds the ever-hungry literary eye. This understanding is gleaned primarily through the amassed analysis of works within the micro memoir genre itself as well as the creation of an entirely new collection of micro memoir: Mathematics of the Great Schism. Readings from that new collection will comprise the heart of the presentation for the John Wesley Powell Student Research Conference as it exemplifies the satisfaction that accompanies the rhyme of a mosaic work of prose by exploring the seemingly unmelodic life of a modern nomad.