Prose poetry is poetry written in prose instead of using verse but preserving poetic qualities
such as heightened imagery, parataxis and emotional effects.
Characteristics Prose poetry should be considered as neither
primarily poetry nor prose but is essentially a hybrid or fusion of the two, and accounted
a separate genre altogether. The argument for prose poetry belonging to the genre of
poetry emphasizes its heightened attention to language and prominent use of metaphor.
On the other hand, prose poetry can be identified primarily as prose for its reliance on prose's
association with narrative and on the expectation of an objective presentation of truth..
History Prose poetry originated in early 19th century
France and Germany as a reaction against dependence upon traditional uses of line in verse. Earlier
examples can be found in Western literature, e.g. James Macpherson's 'translation' of Ossian.)
German Romanticism may be seen as forerunners of the prose poem as it evolved in Europe.
At the time of the prose poem's establishment as a form, French poetry was dominated by
the Alexandrine, a strict and demanding form that poets starting with Aloysius Bertrand
and later Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud and Stéphane Mallarmé rebelled against in
works such as Gaspard de la nuit, Paris Spleen and Les Illuminations. Gedichte in Prosa.
Von der Romantik bis zur Moderne. Vorwort und Auswahl von Alexander Stillmark, Frankfurt
a. Main. Germany and Austria throughout the nineteenth century produced a large body of
examples of prose poetry without using the designation. The prose poem continued to be
written in France into the 20th century by such writers as Max Jacob, Henri Michaux,
and Francis Ponge. At the end of the 19th century, British Decadent
movement poets such as Oscar Wilde picked up the form because of its already subversive
associations. Writers of prose poetry outside of France
include Friedrich Hölderlin, Novalis, Hans Christian Andersen, Rainer Maria Rilke, Stefan
George, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Maeterlinck, Turgenev, Kafka, Georg Trakl, H.P. Lovecraft,
and Clark Ashton Smith. Notable Modernist poet T. S. Eliot wrote vehemently
against prose poems. He added to the debate about what defines the genre, saying in his
introduction to Djuna Barnes' highly poeticized 1936 novel Nightwood that this work may not
be classed as "poetic prose" as it did not have the rhythm or "musical pattern" of verse.
In contrast, a couple of other Modernist authors wrote prose poetry consistently, including
Gertrude Stein and Sherwood Anderson. By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept
by Canadian author Elizabeth Smart, written in 1945, is a relatively isolated example
of English-language poetic prose in the mid-20th century.
Then, for a while, prose poems died out, at least in English—until the early 1950s and
'60s, when American poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs,
Russell Edson, Charles Simic, Robert Bly and James Wright experimented with the form. Edson
worked principally in this form, and helped give the prose poem its current reputation
for surrealist wit. Simic won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1989 collection,
The World Doesn't End. At the same time, poets elsewhere were exploring
the form in Spanish, Japanese and Russian. Octavio Paz worked in this form in Spanish
in his Aguila o Sol?. Spanish poet Ángel Crespo did his most notable work in the genre.
Giannina Braschi, postmodern Spanish-language poet, wrote a trilogy of prose poems, El imperio
de los sueños. Translator Dennis Keene presents the work of six Japanese prose poets in The
Modern Japanese Prose Poem: an Anthology of Six Poets. Similarly, Adrian Wanner and Caryl
Emerson describe the form's growth in Russia in their critical work, Russian Minimalism:
from the Prose Poem to the Anti-story. The writings of Syrian poet and writer Francis
Marrash featured the first examples of prose poetry in modern Arabic literature.
In Poland, Bolesław Prus, influenced by the French prose poets, had written a number of
poetic micro-stories, including "Mold of the Earth", "The Living Telegraph" and "Shades".
His somewhat longer story, "A Legend of Old Egypt", likewise shows many features of prose
poetry. The form has gained popularity since the late
1980s. Journals have begun to specialize, publishing solely prose poems/flash fiction
in their pages. In the UK, Stride Books published, in 1993, an anthology of prose poetry, "A
Curious Architecture". Some contemporary writers who write prose poems or flash fiction include
Michael Benedikt, Leigh Blackmore, Robert Bly, J. Karl Bogartte, Anne Carson, Graham
Burchell, Kim Chinquee, Stephen Dunn, Russell Edson, Phillip A. Ellis, Richard Garcia, Ray
Gonzalez, Kimiko Hahn, Lyn Hejinian, Mark Jarman, Louis Jenkins, Campbell McGrath, Sheila
Murphy, Naomi Shihab Nye, Mary Oliver, Alan Baker, Ian Seed, Steve Spence, Linda Black,
John Olson, Marge Piercy, Bruce Holland Rogers, David Shumate, James Tate, and J. Marcus Weekley,
Ron Silliman, Robin Spriggs, Thomas Wiloch, Jason Whitmarsh, W.H. Pugmire, and Gary Young.
See also Poetry
Fu Flash fiction
Haibun Lyric essay
Vignette Double Room
The English Mail-Coach Suspiria de Profundis
Notes
References Robert Alexander, C.W. Truesdale, and Mark
Vinz. "The Party Train: A Collection of North American Prose Poetry." New Rivers Press,
1996. Michel Delville, "The American Prose Poem:
Poetic Form and the Boundaries of Genre." Gainesville, FL: University of Florida, 1998
Stephen Fredman, "Poet’s Prose: The Crisis in American Verse." 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1990. Ray Gonzalez, "No Boundaries: Prose Poems
by 24 American Poets." Tupelo Press, 2003. David Lehman, "Great American prose poems:
from Poe to the present." Simon & Schuster, 2003
Jonathan Monroe, "A Poverty of Objects: The Prose Poem and the Politics of Genre." Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987. Margueritte S. Murphy, "A Tradition of Subversion:
The Prose Poem from Wilde to Ashbery." Amherst, Mass.: The University of Massachusetts Press,
1992. Zygmunt Szweykowski, Twórczość Bolesława
Prusa, 2nd ed., Warsaw, Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1972.
External links The Prose Poem An International Journal produced
by The Berkeley Electronic Press Poetic Form: Prose Poem
William Stafford and David Shumate describe prose poetry
elsewhere An online literary publication and archive of prose poetry