An Introduction to the Prose Poems

A way of crossing genres; a means of finding the poetic heart of prose; a condensed form of discursiveness; a literary mode that values inventiveness; a problematic 'genre' that embraces the quotidian and the 'real': prose poetry is all of these things. It is an important and somewhat neglected art form and while its origins in the west are most often traced back to 19th-century France and the repudiation of traditional French verse forms--such as the alexandrine--by poets as distinct as Aloysius Bertrand, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud and Stephanie Mallarme, it has a more ancient lineage in some Biblical texts and various prose-poetical works in diverse countries.