Everything about Prose Poetry totally explained
» This article refers to a poetic form. For the competitive speech event, see Prose & Poetry.
Prose poetry is usually considered a form of
poetry written in
prose that breaks some of the normal rules associated with prose discourse, for heightened imagery or emotional effect, among other purposes.
Characteristics
Arguments continue about whether prose poetry is actually a form of
poetry or a form of
prose (or a separate genre altogether). Most critics argue that prose poetry belongs in the
genre of
poetry because of its use of
metaphorical language and attention to
language. Other critics argue that prose poetry falls into the genre of
prose because prose poetry relies on prose's association with
narrative, its consistent divergence of discourse, and its reliance on readers' expectation of an objective presentation of
truth in prose. Yet others argue that the prose poem gains its subversiveness through its fusion of both poetic and prosaic elements.
History
As a specific form, prose poetry is generally assumed to have originated in 19th-century
France.
At the time of the prose poem's emergence,
French poetry was dominated by the
alexandrine, an extremely strict and demanding form that poets such as
Aloysius Bertrand and
Charles Baudelaire wanted to rebel against. Further proponents of the prose poem included other French poets such as
Arthur Rimbaud and
Stéphane Mallarmé.
The prose poem continued to be written in France and found profound expression, in the mid-20th century, in the prose poems of
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 association. This actually hindered the dissemination of the form into English because many associated the Decadents with homosexuality, hence any form used by the Decadents was suspect.
Notable
Modernist poet
T. S. Eliot wrote vehemently against prose poems, though he did try his hand at one or two. He also 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 didn't 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. In actuality, Anderson considered his work to be short fictions—in the current term, "
flash fiction." The distinction between flash fiction and prose poetry is at times very thin, almost indiscernible.
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 1960s and '70s, when American poets such as
Allen Ginsberg,
Russell Edson,
Charles Simic,
Robert Bly and
James Wright experimented with the form. Edson, indeed, worked principally in this form, and helped give the prose poem its current reputation for surrealist wit. Similarly, Simic won the Pulitzer Prize in 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? (Eagle or Sun?)
. Spanish poet
Ángel Crespo (1926-95) did his most notable work in the genre.
Giannina Braschi, postmodern Spanish-language poet, wrote a trilogy of prose poems,
El imperio de los suenos (Empire of Dreams, 1988). 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. Two best known examples of this literature form in Russian are
Dead Souls by
Gogol and
Moscow-Petushki by
Venedikt Erofeev.
In
Poland,
Bolesław Prus (1847-1912), influenced by the French prose poets, had written a number of
poetic micro-stories, including "
Mold of the Earth" (1884), "" (1884) and "
Shades" (1885).
The form has gained popularity since the late 1980s, and literary journals that previously refused to acknowledge prose poetry's unique contributions to both poetry and prose have now conceded its worth and currently display prose poems next to sonnets and short stories. Journals have even begun to specialize, publishing solely prose poems/flash fiction in their pages (see external links below). Some contemporary writers working in the prose poem/flash fiction form include Michael Benedikt, Robert Bly,
Anne Carson, Kim Chinquee, Ray Gonzalez,
Lyn Hejinian, Louis Jenkins,
Campbell McGrath,
Sheila Murphy,
Mary Oliver, David Shumate,
James Tate, and
J. Marcus Weekley.
It used to be said that prose poetry was impossible in
English because the English language wasn't so strictly governed by rules as was the
French language. In the
twentieth century, when English prose became increasingly ruled by the iron laws of
America's
Strunk and White, this may no longer have been the case.
Earlier rapturous, rhythmic, image-laden prose from previous centuries, such as that found in
Jeremy Taylor and
Thomas de Quincey, strikes 21st-century readers as having something of a poetic quality.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Prose Poetry'.
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