Prose Poetry in Theory and Practice

Description

Prose Poetry in Theory and Practice vigorously engages with the Why? and the How? of prose poetry, a form that is currently enjoying a surge in popularity. With contributions by both practitioners and academics, this volume seeks to explore how its distinctive properties guide both writer and reader, and to address why this form is so well suited to the early twenty-first century. With discussion of both classic and less well- known writers, the essays both illuminate prose poetry's distinctive features and explore how this outsider form can offer a unique way of viewing and describing the uncertainties and instabilities which shape our identities and our relationships with our surroundings in the early twenty-first century. Combining insights on the theory and practice of prose poetry, Prose Poetry in Theory and Practice offers a timely and valuable contribution to the development of the form, and its appreciation amongst practitioners and scholars alike. Largely approached from a practitioner perspective, this collection provides vivid snapshots of contemporary debates within the prose poetry field while actively contributing to the poetics and craft of the form. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Illustrations Acknowledgements Notes On Contributors Introduction Notes 1 Protean Manifestations and Diverse Shapes: Defining and Understanding Strategies of the Contemporary Prose Poem Introduction Fragmentation and the Prose Poem Speaking the Unspeakable – Mariko Nagai Cadence and Compression – Marc Vincenz The Quotidian and Contemporary – Peter Johnson Shape-shifting – Lauren Russell Conclusion Notes 2 Prose Poetry and the Resistance to Narrative Notes 3 “In the Eye of the Beholder”: Prose Poetry in Dialogue Between Reader and Poet Unspoken Notes 4 Nobody’s Storybook: Reading Russell Edson for the Wrong Reasons Mis-Thanking Russell Edson Turning Forward: How Narrative Animates the Metaphoric Process “The Only World That Showed Up”: The Prose Poem as Word Problem Foregrounding Metaphor “Coordinated in Endless Coincidence”: Destabilising the Poetic Subject Notes 5 “Borders On Edges, Where Skin Stops, Or Begins”: The Prose Poem’s Relationship With the Discourses of Fashion and Food, … Notes 6 The Contemporary Vernacular: Exploring Intersections of Architecture and Prose Poetry Conclusion Notes 7 “Image Machine”: Gaspar Orozco’s Book of the Peony and the Prose Poem Sequence as Perceptual Trick Reading Book of the Peony “The Endless Enigma Locked in That Flower” The Prose Poem Sequence as Paradoxical Form “The Small Model Room of the Box” Autocinema: “The Films of the Mind” Conclusion: Image Machines and Perceptual Tricks Notes 8 Writing the Prose Poem: An Insider’s Perspective On an Outsider Artform Notes 9 “A Form of Howling. A Form of Chanting. A Form of Looking Out for Each Other”: Poetics and Politics of the Contemporary ... Contextualising Indian-English Prose Poetry Kavya Or Poetic Literature: Contextualising the Prose Poem in Indian Literature Aspects of the Indian-English Prose Poem Narayanan, Life and Times of Mr. S Dhar, Historians of Redundant Moments Conclusion: “Casting Yourself Across, Casting Yourself Anew” Notes 10 Collaboration, Conversation, and Adaptation: The Prose Poetry Project and Renga Attitude Notes 11 Framing Catastrophe: The Ekphrastic Prose Poem Notes 12 “An Interlude Suspended”: Historical Biography Through the Lens of Prose Poetry Notes 13 Who Are the Contemporary Symbolists?: The Prose Poem and the Decorative-Subjective Approach A Provocation Defining Symbolism Playful Dalliance in the Poetry of Cassandra Atherton The Space as a Decorative Picture in Paul Hetherington’s Poetry Conclusion and Suggestions for Finding the Decorative-Subjective Space in Practice Notes 14 One Foot; Many Places: The Prose Poem’s Art of Standing Still While Travelling Notes Bibliography Index