Customer Reviews

Models of the Universe : An Anthology of the Prose Poem

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The prose poem, as noted in the introduction to this wonderful anthology, has had a long and varied history. Widely regarded as an outsider to poetry, and rejected by many critics, the prose poem reminds us that the nature of poetry itself is the continual act of questioning and pushing the boundaries of definition. With examples from the very first prose poet, Aloysius Bertrand, all the way to the present, this anthology deserves a prominent place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the past, present, and future of poetry.

this book seemed like a good idea when i bought it. but after living with it a while i feel there must be better prose poem collections out there. about half the book--up to robert bly, say--name-checks the hoary old classic, mostly european, proponents of the genre. i say name-checks because only a couple of works by each poet is included. the book justifies its price with a comfortable type size, generous margins, usually one poem per page--but the result of the consequent stingy sampling is that one tends to read through as if it was by a single author. and the choices in the second half of the book, with its heavy emphasis on american authors, seem arbitrary. i think this book tries to do too much.

Although I've been studying poetry for decades and working with other poets for a long time, too, I had no interest in prose poems. The musicality of traditionally metered poetry and the gorgeous imagery of free verse drew me into reading, writing, and studying those forms, but prose poems seemed to look and act about as much like poetry as a business letter! While people drooling over the works of, say, Bertrand, Baudelaire, Mallarme, and Rimbaud might need a Kleenex, I felt more inclined to ask for one of those little bags in the back seat pocket of an airplane.

In a belated attempt to be open-minded or maybe relieve boredom on a rainy day, I read the anthology of Great American Prose Poems edited by David Lehman and fell in love with prose poetry. These poems were accessible. These poems allowed me to do things in poetry I had not yet tried. And, most amazingly, these poems reached out to general readers and non-poets, making poetry accessible again to regular people.

Wanting to find out more about the genre, I checked the titles by Oberlin College (a great proponent of poets, poetry, and the literary arts) and saw that Amazon listed this book among other interesting titles. When I saw the 1995 copyright date, however, I almost emptied my cart, but I'm very glad I did not.

This book provides exactly what I wanted - a sweeping view of prose poetry beginning with those "masters" I had previously avoided (yeah, Bertrand, Baudelaire, Mallarme, Rimbaud, etc.) and whose work (at last in the context of its intended form) I now "got." In addition, this anthology provides us with a well-selected overview of the works written today by prose poets from around the world.

Some of my favorite American poets such as Robert Bly, John Ashbery, W.S. Merwin, Charles Wright, and Charles Simic have been included, of course, and so have poems by Vallejo, Eugenio Montale, Jorge Louis Borges, Wislawa Szymborska, and Tomas Transtromer, thereby lifting the book to its title, Models of the Universe. Besides providing us with exemplary models of prose poems written across diverse times, cultures, and geographies, this highly recommended anthology also gives us a uni- (as in one) -verse too - a poetry that warmly greets and surprises, one paragraph, one verse at a time.