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.

Edited by David Lehman

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" from Tender Buttons

William Carlos Williams, 1883-1963

Three Improvisations from Kora 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"

W. H. Auden, 1907-1973

"Vespers"

Elizabeth Bishop, 1911-19792
"12 O'Clock News"

Czeslaw Milosz, 1911-

"Esse"
"Be Like Others"

Kenneth Patchen, 1911-1972

"In Order To"

"Delighted with Bluepink"

"The Famous Boating Party"

Delmore Schwartz, 1913-1966

"Justice"

David Ignatow, 1914-1997

"I sink back upon the ground..."

"The Story of Progress"

Barbara Guest, 1920-

"Color"

James Schuyler, 1923-1991

"Two Meditations"

"Wonderful World"

"Footnote"

Kenneth Koch, 1925-2002

"On Happiness"

"The Allegory of Spring"

"The Wish to Be Pregnant"

Robert Bly, 1926-

"The Hockey Poem"

"Warning to the Reader"

"A Rusty Tin Can"

"One Day at a Florida Key"

Allen Ginsberg, 1926-1997

"A Supermarket in California"

James Merrill, 1926-1995

Three Poems from "Prose of Departure"

Frank O'hara, 1926-1966

"Meditations in an Emergency"

"Schoenberg"

John Ashbery, 1927-

"Whatever It Is, Wherever You Are"

"Haibun 6"

"A Nice Presentation"

"Disagreeable Glimpses"

"Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland"

W. S. Merwin, 1927-

0 "Humble Beginning"

"The Dachau Shoe"

"Our Jailer"

"The Lonely Child"

James Wright, 1927-1980

"On Having My Pocket Picked in Rome"

"Honey"

John Hollander, 1929-

"The Way We Walk Now"

"Crocus Solus"

"Not Something for Nothing"

Harry Mathews, 1930-

Three Entries from 20 Lines a Day

Mark Strand, 1934-

"In the Privacy of the Home"

"Success Story"

"From a Lost Diary"

"Chekhov: A Sestina"

Michael Benedikt, 1935-

"The Doorway of Perception"

Russell Edson, 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

Charles Simic, 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"

Frank Bidart, 1939-

"Borges and I"

Fanny Howe, 1940-

"Everything's a Fake"

"Doubt"

Tom Clark, 1941-

"Death, Revenge and the Profit Motive"

Billy Collins, 1941-

"Five Fondly Remembered Passages from My Childhood Reading"

Robert Hass, 1941-

"A Story About the Body"

"In the Bahamas"

"Tall Windows"

Lyn Hejinian, 1941-

Three Sections From My Life

Joe Brainard, 1942-1994

"Freud"

"History"

Louis Jenkins, 1942-

"Football"

"Appointed Rounds"

"The Prose Poem"

Ron Padgett, 1942-

"Light as Air"

"Album"

Michael Palmer, 1943-

"A word is coming up on the screen..."

James Tate, 1943-

"The Second Greatest Story Ever Told"

"Same Tits"

"The List of Famous Hats"

"Distance from Loved Ones"

"Rapture"

"Bernie at the Pay Phone"

Paul Violi, 1944-

"Triptych"

"Acknowledgments"

John Godfrey, 1945-

"So Let's Look At It Another Way"

Bernadette Mayer, 1945-

"Visions or Desolation"

Alice Notley, 1945-

"Untitled"

Ira Sadoff, 1945-

"Seurat"

Anne Waldman, 1945-

"Stereo"

Terence Winch, 1945-

"Shoot the Horse"

B.J. Atwood-Fukuda, 1946-

"The Wreck of the Platonic"

Andrei Codrescu, 1946-

"De Natura Rerum"

"Secret Training"

"Power"

Rae Armantrout, 1947-

"Bases"

"Middle Men"

"Imaginary Places"

Michael Burkard, 1947-

"A Conversation About Memory"

Lydia Davis, 1947-

"The Thirteenth Woman"

"In the Garment District"

"Agreement"

Aaron Fogel, 1947-

"The Chessboard Is on Fire"

Yusef Komunyakaa, 1947-

"Nude Interrogation"

"The Hanoi Market"

"A Summer Night in Hanoi"

Maureen Seaton, 1947-

"Toy Car"

"Lateral Time"

Leslie Scalapino, 1948-

"That They Were at the Beach"

Tom Whalen, 1948-

"Why I Hate the Prose Poem"

Agha Shahid Ali, 1949-2001

"Return to Harmony 3"

Lynn Emanuel, 1949-

"inside gertrude stein"

Kit Robinson, 1949-

"The Person"

Charles Bernstein, 1950-

"Comraderie turns to rivalry..."

Anne Carson, 1950-

"On Waterproofing"

"On Orchids"

"On Hedonism"

"On Shelter"

Carolyn Forché, 1950-

"The Colonel"

James Richardson, 1950-2

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

John Yau, 1950-

"Predella"

"Summer Rental"

Peter Johnson, 1951-

"Pretty Happy!"

"Tex-Mex"

Maxine Chernoff, 1952-

"His Pastime"

"Vanity, Wisconsin"

"The Inner Life"

Rita Dove, 19…