Strange Horizons Discussion Forum: A Bestiary: Tlaltecuhtli, by Tim Pratt

This poem had the wonderful poetic prose that I've come to expect from Tim Pratt, and chopping it up like this didn't distract me as much as most free verse, but I still wonder why it wasn't written in paragraph form. It would make, in my opinion, a better prose poem or flash fiction than Boston's last, which was more of an essay, because it had more of a sense of... story arch? Something. Boston has always struck me as more of an essayist, as Tim Pratt is a storyteller. There is nothing wrong with essays, but most people probably don't take Voltaire or Thoreau to the beach, or on a long Greyhound. They take "Tlaltecuhtli."

Which reminds me:

Tim Pratt is to Boris Karloff what Cole Porter is to O. Henry. (Boris Karloff was _William_ Henry Pratt, and O. Henry was _William_ Sidney Porter.)

Brevity lies wit sole.

--José