Poet's Novel

I have this secret (no longer secret) project called Poet's Novel.. As the title implies, it is a novel written by a poet (me). My theory is that the poet needs to have a novel to put all his (or her) other stuff in. Poetry is the car and prose is the house. You wouldn't try to fit everything you own in your car. Many of my favorite novels are poet's novels, like those of James Schuyler, novels that I wouldn't claim are masterworks of the novel as literary genre at all. Just as well, because however much I have admired and enjoyed certain works of fiction in the past, I have little sentimental attachment to the genre of fiction.

Poetry leaves almost everything out. I like it for that, but I also feel the need for a place to put some of my other baggage. The poet without his novel is naked. Where would Lezama Lima be without Paradiso?

A poem is something you carry around with you in your life. A novel is an alternate imaginative space where you get lost. The poet's novel works as a hybrid: you can carry it with you (it's portable), but it also has spaces where you can get momentarily lost.