Prose Poems

[genoveva]

Please recommend some good prose poems. I am only familiar with Charles Baudelaire's prose poems, and some of Colinet's. Thanks for any suggestions!

[arrrvee]

i was gonna suggest paris spleen, but you already mentioned baudelaire so that's out..have you read illuminations by rimbaud?

here's the complete title:

illumination and other prose poems
by arthur rimbaud
translated by louise varese

[mono]

Personally, I would recommend nearly anything, as arrrvee wrote, Arthur Rimbaud, but also any poetry by Walt Whitman, Pablo Neruda, Oscar Wilde, T.S. Eliot, perhaps Octavio Paz, and I have heard others call Robert Bly 'prose poetry,' but I have read little myself.
Good luck!

[genoveva]

any poetry by Walt Whitman, Pablo Neruda, Oscar Wilde, T.S. Eliot, perhaps Octavio Paz, and I have heard others call Robert Bly 'prose poetry,' but I have read little myself.
Good luck!

Thanks for the suggestions! Can you recommend specific prose poems from the above? I am not familiar with any prose poems per se of Whitman's, Neruda's, Wilde's, Eliot's, or Paz's, but I will keep searching. Thanks.

[ktd222]

Thanks for the suggestions! Can you recommend specific prose poems from the above? I am not familiar with any prose poems per se of Whitman's, Neruda's, Wilde's, Eliot's, or Paz's, but I will keep searching. Thanks.

Whitman has a really short poem, but by far one of his best, titled A Clear Midnight.

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson
done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the
themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.

[mono]

Thanks for the suggestions! Can you recommend specific prose poems from the above? I am not familiar with any prose poems per se of Whitman's, Neruda's, Wilde's, Eliot's, or Paz's, but I will keep searching. Thanks.

Certainly, genoveva. From almost any poem by Whitman, Wilde, and Neruda, particularly, one can spot some kind of prose-poetry in their writings, then again, to tell all honesty, the definition of 'prose poetry' seems slightly loose and flexible; arguably, there could exist many poets as prose-poets. I can point out some specific examples, however.
Walt Whitman wrote the following fairly popular (and historical) poem:

1861

Arm'd year! year of the struggle!
No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year!
Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas
piano;
But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing,
carrying a rifle on your shoulder,
With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands--with a knife in
the belt at your side,
As I heard you shouting loud--your sonorous voice ringing across the
continent;
Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities,
Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the workmen, the
dwellers in Manhattan;
Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and
Indiana,
Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and descending the
Alleghanies; 10
Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along
the Ohio river;
Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at
Chattanooga on the mountain top,
Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs, clothed in blue, bearing
weapons, robust year;
Heard your determin'd voice, launch'd forth again and again;
Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipp'd cannon,
I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.

A popular poem by Oscar Wilde:

By The Arno

The oleander on the wall
Grows crimson in the dawning light,
Though the grey shadows of the night
Lie yet on Florence like a pall.

The dew is bright upon the hill,
And bright the blossoms overhead,
But ah! the grasshoppers have fled,
The little Attic song is still.

Only the leaves are gently stirred
By the soft breathing of the gale,
And in the almond-scented vale
The lonely nightingale is heard.

The day will make thee silent soon,
O nightingale sing on for love!
While yet upon the shadowy grove
Splinter the arrows of the moon.

Before across the silent lawn
In sea-green mist the morning steals,
And to love's frightened eyes reveals
The long white fingers of the dawn

Fast climbing up the eastern sky
To grasp and slay the shuddering night,
All careless of my heart's delight,
Or if the nightingale should die.

For Pablo Neruda, one of my favorite poems:

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

And, lastly, a poem by Octavio Paz (surprisingly one of few I could find online that I could recognize ):

No More Clichés

Beautiful face
That like a daisy opens its petals to the sun
So do you
Open your face to me as I turn the page.

Enchanting smile
Any man would be under your spell,
Oh, beauty of a magazine.

How many poems have been written to you?
How many Dantes have written to you, Beatrice?
To your obsessive illusion
To you manufacture fantasy.

But today I won't make one more Cliché
And write this poem to you.
No, no more clichés.

This poem is dedicated to those women
Whose beauty is in their charm,
In their intelligence,
In their character,
Not on their fabricated looks.

This poem is to you women,
That like a Shahrazade wake up
Everyday with a new story to tell,
A story that sings for change
That hopes for battles:
Battles for the love of the united flesh
Battles for passions aroused by a new day
Battle for the neglected rights
Or just battles to survive one more night.

Yes, to you women in a world of pain
To you, bright star in this ever-spending universe
To you, fighter of a thousand-and-one fights
To you, friend of my heart.

From now on, my head won't look down to a magazine
Rather, it will contemplate the night
And its bright stars,
And so, no more clichés.

As for T.S. Eliot, many of his poems can get quite long (as well as those by Walt Whitman), but certainly find him worth reading. If you have the time, and patience for comprehending Eliot, I recommend The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock.
Good luck, and happy reading!

[genoveva]

Thanks all! I realize the definition for prose poetry is quite loose. What I have set in my mind as prose poetry is first and foremost form. If it seems evident that the author has taken pains to break lines intentionally, is that really considered prose poetry I wonder? So when I see such structured poems, as some examples above, even though they may read more "prosey", I wonder if they really are. Hmmm.... must investigate further...

[mono]

Thanks all! I realize the definition for prose poetry is quite loose. What I have set in my mind as prose poetry is first and foremost form. If it seems evident that the author has taken pains to break lines intentionally, is that really considered prose poetry I wonder? So when I see such structured poems, as some examples above, even though they may read more "prosey", I wonder if they really are. Hmmm.... must investigate further...

Indeed, I think it depends more on the content of the poem, but the intended breakings of lines (or cesuras) can cause some confusion in prose-poetry; sometimes I dislike the term, regardless, prose-poetry - it sounds much like saying apple-orange.
Wikipedia has very little to say of prose-poetry, but may clear up any definitions (and I never knew it originated with French poets ). With or without rhyme or structure (though with rhyme, it would seem more difficult), I think as long as the poem retains a prose-like quality, it may classify in prose-poetry.

[genoveva]

Following are some more traditionally looking "prose poems". My new quest is to practice identifying prose poetry characteristics in more structured looking poems like those posted above. Thanks all!


Bad Luck
by Charles Baudelaire


To lift such a heavy weight, Sisyphus, a man would need your courage. Though we work with a good heart, Art is long and Time is fleeting.
Far from the tombs of the famous, towards a lonely graveyard, my heart, like a muffled drum, goes beating funeral marches.
Many a gem sleeps buried in dark forgetfulness, far, far from picks and plumb-lines;
Many a flower unwillingly looses its perfume, sweet as a secret, in deep solitudes.

[genoveva]

The Ransom
by Charles Baudelaire

Man has, to pay his ransom, two fields of rich, deep soil, which he must dig and clear with the spade of reason.
To see the smallest rose, to wrest a few ears of corn from them, he must ceaselessly water them with the salt tears of his grey brow.
One is Art, the other is Love. To have the judge on his side, when the terrible day of justice dawns,
He will have to show barns full of harvests, and flowers whose shapes and colours will win the vote of the Angels.

[genoveva]

Max Jacob

Love One’s Neighbor

Who saw the toad cross a street? He’s a very small man. A doll isn’t smaller. He drags himself on his knees. Might you say he’s ashamed? No, he has rheumatism. One leg drags behind and he brings it forward! Where is he going? The poor clown comes out of the sewer. No one noticed this toad in the street. At one time no one paid any attention to me in the street, and now the children make fun of my yellow star. Happy toad! you have no yellow star.

[genoveva]

Seeing Creeley for the First Time
by Robert Bly

Creeley sits on a chair, pulling up his knees to laugh, like a boy, looking very insecure, unsure, like a boy at school with pants too short. He looks astoundingly like a crow- it is unbelievable- even his hair is somehow “crow hair.” Shining black, falling over his head that is full of determination to pester owls if he sees any. The beak is a crow beak, and the sideways look he gives, the head shoved slightly to the side by the bad eye, finishes it. And I suppose his language is crow language- no long open vowels, like the owl, no howls like the wolf, but instead short, faintly hollow, harsh sounds, that all together make something absolutely genuine, crow speech coming up from every feather, every source of that crow body and crow life.
The crows take very good care of their children, and are the most intelligent of birds, wary of human company, though when two or three fly over the countryside together, they look almost happy.

[genoveva]

A Turtle
by Robert Bly

The orange stripes on his head shoot forward into the future. The slim head stretches forward, the turtle is pushing with all his might, caught now on the edge of my palm. the claws- five on the front, four on the back- are curiously long and elegant, cold, curved, pale, like a lieutenant’s sword. The yellow stripes on the neck and head remind you of racing cars.
The bottom plate is a pale, washed- out rose color from being dragged over the world- the imagination is simplified there, without too much passion, business-like, like the underside of a space-ship.

[stlukesguild]

The French seem to be particularly brilliant with this genre. Besides Baudelaire and Rimbaud I would also look into Mallarme, Paul Vallery, Edmond Jabes, and others. I personally would almost count anything written by Walter Pater as a form of poetry... his prose being so lush. Another interesting example would be W.S. Merwin. He has several books of prose which are difficult to define. They are not necessarily short stories or essays. If anything, they fall near some of what Brges and Kafka do with the form of "fiction"... yet they can often be exquisitely poetic. The two volumes I have are entitled, "Houses and Travellers" and "The Miner's Pale Children".

[mono]

I recently read the following poem, and felt reminded of this discussion --

Because You Asked About the Line Between Prose and Poetry

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned into pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn't tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.

Howard Nemerov