A request for poetic literature recommendations...

[Tyrion Cheddar]

I've always felt that one reason I fell for Ray Bradbury's writing as a boy was his prose poetry style, in which he paints pictures with words, the sound and shape of the words is as important as the content, it feels luxurious to read. Recently, when I read Steppenwolf, I was reminded of this love of mine by Hermann Hesse's poetic style, and realized there had been too few of such works in my world recently.
As for style, I like internal meditations like the aforementioned Steppenwolf, journeys within, where the action of the story is mainly the inner personal transformation of the protagonist.
Suggestions, anyone?

[Eiseabhal]

I agree about Bradbury. When I came across him in charity bookshops I enjoyed his distinctive style from the off. All of Hesse is similar to the one you mention. Perhaps you could try Cider With Rosie or The Green Isle of The Great Deep. They would contain at least half of what you are looking for. Gunn's work is frequently densely interior. Lee is notably poetic.

[tonywalt]

Cormac Mccarthy, JM Coetzee, and Paul Auster, the latter of which was (is) a published poet, in addition to being a well known writer(nobel prize winner soon?- maybe)

[~Ji]

I agree entirely. Words that are paced and evoke the senses are just as important as character development and story line.

I can also luxuriate in the intoxicating rhythm of the verse novel. Classics like Eugene Onegin (1831) by Alexander Pushkin and contemporary works like Fredy Neptune by Les Murray for example.

[WyattGwyon]

The best example I know is Andrei Bely's Petersburg (which Nabokov believed was among the top four novels of the 20thc) in its complete original form as translated by John Elsworth. Some of its sections read like lyrical poetry, complete with refrains and repeated passages. The refrains tend to have a justification in the narrative, usually as recurring sensory impressions of a character. Bely was probably better known for his poetry than his prose.

[108 fountains]

Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet might be just the thing you are looking for. Other works by Gibran might be similar but I've read only The Prophet.

In a totally different style, but also poetic in my opinion, is Sir Richard Burton's translation of Arabian Nights (One Thousand and One Nights). The stories abound with figurative writing, and certain passages contain rhyme and rhythm. I also notice that he uses a lot of alliteration in general and a lot of alliterative paired words. (I really enjoy alliteration in prose.)

A few examples just pulled at random:
"The Wazir told him all that had passed from first to last..."
"She entered under the dome weeping and wailing..."
"...as for the watering of the garden, that may wait, because thou canst water it when thou wilt."
"...he... returned in hot haste and hurry to the house."
"When my master heard this, the light became night before his sight."
"...when morning shone and showed her sheen."
"They ceased not to... enjoy their wine and wassail."
"...Ghanim was drown in the sea of love and longing."
"She redoubled in coyness and cruelty."
"...all things come to pass by Fate and Fortune."
"...time waxed tiresome and tedious..."

[Dreamwoven]

I am also very fond of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet. A wonderful collection of truths. I considered starting a blog on this work but decided against it as it is not open-ended enough as a topic for a blog. But I still read The Prophet for inspiration.

[TheFifthElement]

Jeanette Winterson (Written on the Body, Weight), Ali Smith (How to be Both, Like), Virginia Woolf (Jacob's Room, To the Lighthouse, The Waves), Lucy Wood (Weathering, Diving Belles), Don DeLillo (White Noise, Mao II), Helen Oyeyemi (Mr Fox, Boy Snow Bird), Cees Nooteboom (Lost Paradise), Damon Galgut (In a Strange Room), Evie Wyld (All the Birds, Singing; After the Fire, A Still Small Voice), Nadine Gordimer (The Conservationist). Oh and H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald is beautiful.

[ennison]

A Voice Through a Cloud : Denton Welch

[nick mcglue]

McCarthy: (Blood Meridian, The Crossing); Faulkner: (Absalom, Absalom; The Sound & The Fury); Morrison (Beloved); DeLillo (Underworld); Auster (New York Trilogy); Conrad (Nostromo, Heart of Darkness); Joyce (Ulysses); Proust (Remembrance of Things Past); Woolf (The Waves, Mrs. Calloway, To the Lighthouse).

[Dreamwoven]

Robert James Waller A Thousand Country Roads and its predecessor The Bridges of Madison County.

[nick mcglue]

The language in The Bridges of Madison County was poetic? If you have a copy, could you share a passage?

[Dreamwoven]

Poetry and prose merge into one another, the opening words of The Bridges of Madison County:

"There are songs that come free from the blue-eyed grass, from the dust of a thousand country roads. This is one of them."

[nick mcglue]

Ok. Thanks for the passage.

[Eiseabhal]

T H White could be a writer that you would enjoy.

[ennison]

Thinking of White, made me think of Macdonald's book H is for Hawk. Very poetic.I think you would like that Tyrion.

[Eiseabhal]

Now I'd never heard of that one. But on looking it up I see Claire Tomalin praising it so it is probably worth reading. I'll have to give it a go.

[ennison]

What Eiseabhal? You mean you didn't take my word for it but went to see what some clever bint had to say. That's it. We're through. Adieu.

[Eiseabhal]

Aw but you haven't responded to my slander oops arguments. C mon play the white man. Tomalin is a good judge

[ennison]

That's below the belt. Mise le sean seanair a Ghana cuideachd. Ceart. Tha thu dol air mo chlar dhubh.

[Eiseabhal]

Oh no, not... not the black list. Seriously? Am I still on? Have you read Tomalin's biography of Dickens?

[ennison]

Naw Dawling. Only when I was asleep. No I haven't read that biography but I bought it for a colleague. She told me recently she was still ploughing her way through but thought it great. "Ploughing" Not the best agricultural metaphor. Harrowing? Winnowing? Harvesting? Aye Harvesting golden apples of knowledge from it!

[Eiseabhal]

Here, you're supposed to be recommending poetic prose texts not creating them. Poetic prose texts of quality aren't that hard to think of. "The Enormous Room" is another. Texts driven mainly by interior monologue are a bit harder for me to think of - accessible ones. Of course our original poster may not have meant exclusively interior monologue which is a bit of a narrowing definition.

[Marcus1]

Yasunari Kawabata (Sound of the Mountain, Beauty and Sadness, Thousand Cranes, Snow Country)
Natsume Soseki (Kokoro)
Clarice Lispector (The Passion According to G.H., Stream of Life)
Virginia Woolf (To the Lighthouse, The Waves)
Bruno Schulz (Street of Crocodiles)
Heinrich von Kleist (The Earthquake in Chile, On the Marionette Theatre)
Tove Jannson (The Summer Book)
Tarjei Vesaas (The Birds)
Soren Kierkegaard (Fear and Trembling, The Sickness Unto Death)
Robert Musil (The Man Without Qualities)
Juan Rulfo (Pedro Paramo)
Alejo Carpentier (The Lost Steps)
Rabindranath Tagore (The Home and the World)
Lu Xun (Diary of a Madman and other stories)
Ngugi wa Thiong'o (A Grain of Wheat)
Naguib Mahfouz (Children of Gebelawi)

[ennison]

It's great to see Lispector and Carpentier given a little push on this site. Pedro Paramo has been sitting on my shelves for years unread. Kierkegaard poetic? Hmm I don't think so.

[ajvenigalla]

Some great stylists of poetic prose: Victor Hugo, Vladimir Nabokov, Cormac McCarthy, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Pynchon

[Poetaster]

Italio Calvino. (?)

[Dreamwoven]

I'm not sure if this was directed to me?

He was the one who wrote Arthurian novels. I might just get a copy from a library to try.

[TheFifthElement]

Jeanette Winterson (Written on the Body, Weight), Ali Smith (How to be Both, Like), Virginia Woolf (Jacob's Room, To the Lighthouse, The Waves), Lucy Wood (Weathering, Diving Belles), Don DeLillo (White Noise, Mao II), Helen Oyeyemi (Mr Fox, Boy Snow Bird), Cees Nooteboom (Lost Paradise), Damon Galgut (In a Strange Room), Evie Wyld (All the Birds, Singing; After the Fire, A Still Small Voice), Nadine Gordimer (The Conservationist). Oh and H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald is beautiful.

Adding J G Ballard to my list. From The Drowned World:
"As the spotlight flared across the domed ceiling, illuminating the huge vacant womb for the last time, Kerans felt the warm blood-filled nausea of the chamber flood in upon him. He lay back, spreadeagled across the steps, his hand pressed numbly against the loop of line around the door handle, the soothing pressure of the water penetrating his suit so that the barriers between his own private bloodstream and that of the giant amnion seemed no longer to exist. The deep cradle of silt carried him gently like an immense placenta, infinitely softer than any bed he had ever known. Far above him, as his consciousness faded, he could see the ancient nebulae and galaxies shining through the uterine night, but eventually even their light was dimmed and he was only aware of the faint glimmer of identity within the deepest recesses of his mind."

Also good to see other recommendations for H is for Hawk. It is a truly gorgeous book.

[Vota]

The Iliad and the Odyssey

[Eiseabhal]

It was actually aimed at the first stitcher in this thread but yes White did write Arthurian novels well but it was England Have My Bones and The Goshawk which were on my mind. Dreamwoven is a pleasant moniker.

[Dreamwoven]

From when I joined LitNet in 2010, the webpage designers, Dreamweaver.