Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present [Paperback]

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 ofThe Best American Poetryseries, 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 defines the prose poem, summarizes its French heritage, and outlines its history in the United States. Included here are important works from masters of American literature, as well as poems by contemporary mainstays and emerging talents who demonstrate why the form has become an irresistible option for the practicing poet today.Great American Prose Poemsis a marvelous collection, a must-have for anyone interested in the current state of the art.Table of Contents

Introduction

[organized chronologically by year of poet's birth]

Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882

Woods, A Prose Sonnet

Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849

Shadow -- A Parable

Emma Lazarus, 1849-1887

The Exodus (August 3, 1492)

Amy Lowell, 1874-1925

Red Slippers

Gertrude Stein, 1874-1946

22 Objects fromTender Buttons

William Carlos Williams, 1883-1963

Three Improvisations fromKora in Hell

H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), 1886-1961

Strophe

Antistrophe

Epode

T. S. Eliot, 1888-1965

Hysteria

e. e. cummings, 1894-1962

i was sitting in mcsorley's

Jean Toomer, 1894-1967

Calling Jesus

Thornton Wilder, 1897-1975

Sentences

Hart Crane, 1899-1932

Havana Rose

Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961

Montparnasse

Ruth Krauss, 1901-1993

News

Edwin Denby, 1903-19832
Aaron

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