Great American Prose Poems : From Poe to the Present

by David Lehman

• ISBN13: 9780743229890
• ISBN10: 0743229894
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-03-25
• Publisher: Scribner

Summary

A prose poem is a poem written in prose rather than verse. But what does that really mean? Is it an indefinable hybrid? An anomaly in the history of poetry? Are the very words "prose poem" an oxymoron? This groundbreaking anthology edited by celebrated poet David Lehman, editor of The Best American Poetry series, traces the form in all its dazzling variety from Poe and Emerson to Auden and Ashbery and on, right up to the present.In his brilliant and lucid introduction, Lehman explains that a prose poem can make use of all the strategies and tactics of poetry, but works in sentences rather than lines. He also summarizes the prose poem's French heritage, its history in the United States, and the salient differences between verse and prose. Arranged chronologically to allow readers to trace the gradual development of this hybrid genre, the poems anthologized here include important works from such masters of American literature as Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, e. e. cummings, Hart Crane, Ernest Hemingway, James Schuyler, Allen Ginsberg, Frank O'Hara, and Elizabeth Bishop. Contemporary mainstays and emerging poets -- Robert Bly, John Ashbery, Charles Simic, Billy Collins, Russell Edson, James Tate, Anne Carson, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Lydia Davis, among them -- are represented with their best work in the field.The prose poem is beginning to enjoy a tremendous upswing in popularity. Readers of this marvelous collection, a must-have for anyone interested in the current state of the art, will learn why.

Table of Contents

Introduction [organized chronologically by year of poet''s birth], 1803-1882

"Woods, A Prose Sonnet", 1809-1849

"Shadow -- A Parable", 1849-1887

"The Exodus (August 3, 1492)

"Amy Lowell, 1874-1925

"Red Slippers", 1874-194622

"Objects" from Tender ButtonsWilliam, 1883-1963

Three Improvisations from Kora in, 1886-1961

"Strophe""Antistrophe""Epode", 1888-1965

"Hysteria"e. e. cummings, 1894-1962

"i was sitting in mcsorley''s", 1894-1967

"Calling Jesus", 1897-1975

"Sentences", 1899-1932

"Havana Rose", 1899-1961

"Montparnasse", 1901-1993

"News", 1903-19832

"Aaron", 1907-1973

"Vespers", 1911-19792

"12 O''Clock News", 1911-

"Esse""Be Like Others", 1911-1972

"In Order To""Delighted with Bluepink"

"The Famous Boating Party", 1913-1966

"Justice", 1914-1997

"I sink back upon the ground...""The Story of Progress"Barbara Guest, 1920-

"Color", 1923-1991

"Two Meditations""Wonderful World""Footnote", 1925-2002

"On Happiness""The Allegory of Spring""The Wish to Be Pregnant, 1926-"

"The Hockey Poem""Warning to the Reader"

"A Rusty Tin Can""One Day at a Florida Key", 1926-1997"

A Supermarket in California", 1926-1995

Three Poems from "Prose of Departure", 1926-1966

"Meditations in an Emergency""Schoenberg", 1927-

"Whatever It Is, Wherever You Are""Haibun 6"

"A Nice Presentation"""Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland", 1927-

Disagreeable Glimpses""Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland""Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland", 1927-

W. S. Merwin, 1927-."Humble Beginning"

"The Dachau Shoe""Our Jailer""The Lonely Child"

"Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland", 1927-James Wright, 1927-1980"

On Having My Pocket Picked in Rome""Honey"

"Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland", 1927-

John Hollander, 1929-."The Way We Walk Now"

"Crocus Solus""Not Something for Nothing"

"Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland", 1927-Harry Mathews, 1930-

Three Entries from 20 Lines a Day.t

"Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland", 1927-Mark Strand, 1934-

"In the Privacy of the Home""Success Story"

"From a Lost Diary""Chekhov: A Sestina", 1935-

"The Doorway of Perception", 1935-

"A Performance at Hog Theater""The Pilot"

"The Taxi""The Rat''s Tight Schedule""The Canoeing Trip"

"The New Father"Rosmarie Waldrop, 1935-

Five Poems from The Reproduction of Profiles, 1938-

Three Poems from The World Doesn''t End"The Magic Study of Happiness"

"Contributor''s Note"Margaret Atwood, 1939-

"Women''s Novels""In Love with Raymond Chandler", 1939-

"Borges and I", 1940-

"Everything''s a Fake""Doubt", 1941-

"Death, Revenge and the Profit Motive", 1941-

"Five Fondly Remembered Passages from My Childhood Reading", 1941-

"A Story About the Body""In the Bahamas""Tall Windows", 1941-

Three Sections From My Life, 1942-1994

"Freud""History", 1942-

"Football""Appointed Rounds""The Prose Poem", 1942-

"Light as Air""Album", 1943-

"A word is coming up on the screen...", 1943-

"The Second Greatest Story Ever Told""Same Tits"

"The List of Famous Hats""Distance from Loved Ones""Rapture"

"Bernie at the Pay Phone", 1944-

"Triptych""Acknowledgments", 1945-

"So Let''s Look At It Another Way", 1945-

"Visions or Desolation", 1945-

"Untitled", 1945-

"Seurat", 1945-

"Stereo", 1945-

"Shoot the Horse", 1946-

"The Wreck of the Platonic", 1946-

"De Natura Rerum""Secret Training""Power", 1947-

"Bases""Middle Men""Imaginary Places", 1947-

"A Conversation About Memory", 1947-

"The Thirteenth Woman""In the Garment District""Agreement", 1947-

"The Chessboard Is on Fire", 1947-

"Nude Interrogation""The Hanoi Market"

"A Summer Night in Hanoi", 1947-

"Toy Car""Lateral Time", 1948-

"That They Were at the Beach", 1948-

"Why I Hate the Prose Poem", 1949-2001

"Return to Harmony 3", 1949-

"inside gertrude stein", 1949-

"The Person", 1950-

"Comraderie turns to rivalry...", 1950-

"On Waterproofing""On Orchids""On Hedonism"

"On Shelter", 1950-

"The Colonel", 1950-2

"Vectors: Thirty-six Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays", 1950-

"Predella""Summer Rental", 1951-

"Pretty Happy!""Tex-Mex", 1952-

"His Pastime""Vanity, Wisconsin""The Inner Life", 1952-

"1833 Kentucky

"1952-

"Magic (or Rousseau)""Matter", 1952-

"Epistle", 1952-

"Monument", 1953-

"Because the ones I work for..."

"Life is boundless...", 1954-

"Anna Karenina""Anal Nap", 1954-

"An Anointing", 1954-

"Cold Calls", ?-

"Variation on a Theme Park,""The Anthropic Principle"

"Sleeping with the Dictionary", 1955-

"Invective: You Should Know"April Bernard, 1956-

"Exegesis", 1956-

"Dear Boy George"

"The Bear-Boy of Lithuania", 1956-

"Avant-Dernières Pensées", 1957-

"No Sorry", 1957 -

"of Flesh and Spirit", 1958-

"Notes on the Orgasm"

"Always Have a Joyful Mind", 1960-

"Lecture""Death""State", 1961-

"Commencement Address", 1961-

"A Nap on the Afternoon of My 39th Birthday", 1961-

"In C", 1962-

"The Prose Poem", 1963-

"Fish Eyes""The Most Beautiful Word", 1963-

"Intermission in Four Acts", 1966-

"A Defense of Poetry", 1966-

Twelve Epistles from Letters to Wendy'', 1967-

"Still Life""Ode", 1967-

"It Could Be a Bird""When Kiss Spells Contradiction", 1968-

Two Poems from "Blasted Fields of Clover Bring Harrowing and Regretful Sighs", 1968-

"Mango, Number 61", 1968-

"Hot Ass Poem", 1970-

"Requiem", 1972-

"The Page Torn Out", 1972-

"According to the Appetites", 1972-

Two Poems from Masquerade, 1973-

"An American Story", 1973-

"The Crowds Cheered as Gloom Galloped Away"308

Sarah Manguso, 1974-

"Nepenthe""What We Miss", 1976--

"He appeared then..."

Notes on Contributors

Acknowledgments

Index of Poems

Index of PoetsCopyright © 2003

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