The Successful Prose Poem Leaves Behind Its Name

The success of books such as Charles Simic’s The World Doesn’t End: Prose Poems (1989) seem to have helped establish the genre of prose poetry, but acceptance seems to have taken longer in the UK. Only recently have UK interviewers, editors, critics and judges embraced the concept of the prose poem. At the same time, readers and poets may talk about the form in quite different ways, and the writing itself is not dependent on the name ‘prose poetry’ to achieve its effects. The affordances prose gives the poet beg investigation, as do the ways in which poets talk about their use of prose. These questions will be discussed in relation to recent works by Claudia Rankine, Simon Armitage and Peter Riley.