folio : short takes on the prose poem
A Small Note on Prose Poetry
I was in my late teens when I first started writing prose poetry. By then, I had read, though not necessarily understood, Rimbaud’s Illuminations and Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil. These books at least enlightened me to the fact that there existed writing with the stolid appearance of prose but the fluid logic of poetry. I certainly hadn’t encountered it in any of my high school or college English classes.
As the range of my personal reading widened, I found further encouragement to pursue prose poetry by my discovery of contemporary poets who worked in the form. They included Robert Bly, Charles Simic, Russell Edson, Elizabeth Willis, Zbigniew Herbert, and James Tate. Reading their prose poems, I felt like I was receiving permission from respected elders to write however I wished.
And yet despite the prestige of these poets, prose poetry is still treated in many literary venues as a poor excuse for poetry. This makes it more, not less, attractive to someone with my dislike of hierarchies. Prose poetry occupies a liminal space between prose and poetry, which means it is unbound by prescriptive definitions of either. Consequently, every prose poem is an experiment, a kind of dare, a challenge to see new things or see old things in new ways.
Underlying the prose poem is a fundamental tension between its structure and its content. Structually, the poem resembles any other paragraph of prose, creating the impression that it will behave as prose typically does – move step by logical step from point A to point B and beyond. The content, meanwhile, resists such rigidity. Rather than use common transitional phrases to mark the way for readers, the prose poem proceeds by associative logic. Linear organization yields to disorienting juxtapositions, the kind that belongs in dreams.
It is my belief that by bending the traditional boundary between prose and poetry, the prose poem opens up space for new perceptions and meanings to enter. This is no small matter, not when the modern mass media are relentless in their efforts to colonize consciousness, constantly clamoring for our attention so as to pump us full of their patented idiocy and bullshit.
All poetry worthy of the name exists in opposition to the churn of mass culture – the rampant hucksterism, the fashionable enthusiasms, the unthinking patriotism. But prose poetry, with its refusal to adjust to even literary convention, seems to me particularly well suited to stand against reactionary rules of all kinds. The prose poem exists to challenge and provoke and to offer a defiant middle finger to the established order.
Thoughts and Prayers
Small furry animals have crawled out of their holes for a look. Such sights! Smashed-in skulls and severed feet and angels covered in blood. Like a nasty drunk, God has been exceptionally belligerent of late. A cadaverous woman in blue scrubs who says her name is April asks, “On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the lowest, how severe is your pain?” Strangers on social media offer thoughts and prayers. Even then, the leaves on trees instantly wither as a burning airship passes overhead. My wife refuses a ride. We cling together just like the words in a poem.
The Sadness Will Last Forever
I was scarecrow thin and often cold and trembly. When I went out in my black beret and belted black raincoat, I might easily have been mistaken for an amateur spy. I would watch with mounting anxiety as the woods filled up with snow or the horizon burned from one end to the other. For years, my condition remained undiagnosed. But just because it now has a name doesn’t mean there is a proven treatment. A physician in rural Massachusetts has failed once again in his attempt to photograph the soul leaving the body at the moment of death.
