From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- 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.
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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.
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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 even wrote vehemently against prose poems, though he did try his
hand at one or two. 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 prose poetry 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 (1926-1995) 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.
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), "The
Living Telegraph" (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
James Tate,
Lyn Hejinian,
Mary Oliver,
Campbell McGrath,
Sheila Murphy, Robert Bly, Kim Chinquee, Ray Gonzalez, Michael
Benedikt, Louis Jenkins, David Shumate and
Anne Carson.
It used to be said that prose poetry was impossible in
English because the English language was not 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.
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External links
