Tender Buttons [A Long Dress]

As a text, “A Long Dress” cannot be definitively placed into either category of prose or poetry. While it is perhaps best read as a prose poem, the “prose” of a “A Long Dress” does not proceed in a fashion generally expected from prose. Instead, the work plays with syntax and diction in distinctly poetic ways. As a prose poem, then, the text is not regulated by any regular meter or rhythm, does not follow any traditional poetic structure, and does not rhyme. As a poem in prose, the text does not even have lines. It is only for convenience that this guide cites the poem by “lines,” or, by each sentence within the poem that ends with a period.