Lydia Davis: evaluation

Transcript context

…In very short stories, does the difference between poetry and prose blur? Because every word counts so much in a very short story. I think it only blurs in that sense. I think of a poem as more lyrical, and I think that’s a test that I can depend on to some extent. There are poems that aren’t very lyrical, but they’re clearly poems for other reasons. I go back to the idea of song with poems, and I don’t see my very short stories as songs. I see them as sort of pedestrian, in other words, thump, thump, thump. They’re not rhythmical or majestically beautiful most of the time. I’m talking about the very, very short ones. There are longer short ones that are a paragraph or a page, and some of those are lyrical. Are there any great writers who don’t have a great sense of humor?…

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