An Introduction
to the Prose Poem
EDITED BY Brian Clements
AND Jamey Dunham
(Firewheel Editions, 2009)

As the above selection suggests, the prose poem has always occupied a peculiar space in literature. Perhaps owing to the rebelliousness of its originators — Aloysius Bertrand is usually identified as its grandfather and Charles Baudelaire is credited for popularizing it — it always seems to have a subversive edge. Without a doubt, it has a unique capacity to challenge boundaries between genres, complicate notions of form, and insist that such distinctions are largely arbitrary. Is it a genre, in its own right, borrowing some of the methods from prose and poetry but otherwise independent of them? Is it a sub-genre, turning structures usually associated with prose towards poetic ends? Might it even be a supra-genre, transcending and thereby encompassing both prose and poetry? These questions only get more complicated with the recent popularization of short shorts, flash fiction, and microfiction, and the willingness of prose writers to compose pieces that at least visually resemble prose poems on the page.

An Introduction to the Prose Poem, edited by Brian Clements and Jamey Dunham, presents a sophisticated survey of the tradition of prose poetry, suggesting that we might be able to address some of these questions with somewhat satisfactory answers. This book does much more than merely pick up where its immediate predecessors, Michael Benedikt’s seminal The Prose Poem: an International Anthology (1976) and Stuart Friebert and David Young’s Models of the Universe (1995), left off. At last, it would seem that we can move beyond cataloging prose poetry by nationality and chronology — an important contribution from these previous editors to our understanding of the tradition of prose poetry — and strive to develop a deeper understanding of the occasions for crafting prose poems.

As the editors point out in their preface, though it would be unreasonable to claim that the prose poem is in any strict sense a “form,” “it would be a mistake to assume that prose poems have no structure” (p. 6). Consequently, they have organized their anthology by “strategies” as a “convenient way to talk about structure.” Strategies identified by the editors run the gambit from obvious choices that certainly extend to most traditions of poetry — anecdote, controlling metaphor, and sequence — to structures that run dangerously close to becoming forms themselves — list, aphorism, and abecedarian — and to strategies that the prose poem seems exceedingly well-suited for — essayistic, fable, and flash.

This organizational scheme is not without its limitations. The editors readily admit that the strategies they identify should not be taken as “static types into which all prose poems can or must fit” (p. 6). Any reader can and should anticipate that many of the poems placed under one section could easily fit into two or three others. John Bradley’s “Parable from Whence It All Began,” for instance, is identified as a “fable” by the editors, but, as the opening and the title clearly suggest, it might just as easily have been classed with the “structural analog” poems, and, as the true obsession of the poem emerges in the second and third sentences, it also could have been placed in the “repetition” section:

As with any anthology that claims to provide a thorough overview of a particular species of writing, it is easy enough to criticize the methods and choices of this introduction. For example, this book simply does not provide as comprehensive an international sampling of prose poems as its aforementioned predecessors. Though the editors rightly insist that the prose poem has come into English, somewhat slowly, through poets writing in French and Spanish, their selections do not always make this connection clear. Surprisingly, neither Baudelaire nor Bertrand made it into the book. On the other hand, both of these writers and many of the other poets that were omitted are so thoroughly anthologized and celebrated elsewhere that the editors might be giving a subtle nod to the need to move beyond them to provide an account of the uniquely English and specifically American tradition of the prose poem. However, at the risk of exploring that tradition, the book sometimes appears too provincial.

The book takes many risks, both in terms of how it is structured and which authors have been included. Despite some minor limitations… An Introduction to the Prose Poem is an important achievement for the tradition of prose poetry in English.

Still, the poems that made it into the book help to illuminate how prose poems have been written, particularly in the U.S., during the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first. Clements and Dunham expose a tradition that, once viewed as marginal and eccentric, has become an important and integral part of American poetry. Their survey of prose poetry, while lacking in some regards, is certainly extensive. It includes several of the most highly regarded poets around the world — Francis Ponge, Max Jacob, Miroslav Holub — and many of the essential American poets to write prose poems — James Wright, James Tate, Carolyn Forché, Russell Edson, Cornelius Eady. The list of poets extends from Nobel laureates — Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda — to the rare but quickly multiplying American poets identified almost exclusively as prose poets —Russell Edson and Nin Andrews — and to relatively unknown though hopefully up-and-coming poets.

The book takes many risks, both in terms of how it is structured and which authors have been included. Despite some minor limitations — the anthology does not include poet bios, for example — An Introduction to the Prose Poem is an important achievement for the tradition of prose poetry in English. Whereas Benedikt’s and Friebert and Young’s anthologies revealed an international phenomenon that American poets were largely missing out on, Clements and Dunham’s collection shows how thoroughly prose poetry has been integrated into American poetics. It has been a long time coming. Prose poetry, which often makes use of irony and parody, is perhaps uniquely suited to the predisposition of the current generation of poets. In thirty or so years, the prose poem has evolved from being an obscure method of composing that established poets might experiment with — James Wright and Kenneth Koch immediately come to mind — to a staple that, like the sonnet, most responsible poets will simply have to come to terms with in their own writing at some point. Certainly Clements and Dunham’s anthology will be an important means of helping poets do just that.