A Short History of the Prose Poem
Seven books, 1842 to 2014, in which prose took on the work of poetry.
The prose poem is the form this site is named for: prose and poesy in the same sentence. It begins in France with Aloysius Bertrand and Baudelaire, crosses into English with Gertrude Stein, and reaches the Pulitzer Prize in 1990 with Charles Simic. By the time of Claudia Rankine’s Citizen, the question of whether a book is poetry or prose had become part of what such books are about.
Tap any point on the line for the book.
