The design and UX isn't done, Rob and Abbie, okkurrrr! 😌
aleithiash's review against another edition
3.0
Sampled this book. A few gems. Some had shockingly crude content or were very liberal in presentation, which was iffy coming from a conservative background. (It's a personal preference.) But the book achieves its goal: highlighting the array of prose poetry in the modern age.
e333mily's review against another edition
5.0
This anthology is so precious! Truly a joy to read & I know I will revisit it all the time.
Some of my favs:
- Some Fears, Emily Berry
- Other Things, Alvin Pang (!!!!!!!)
- The Poet, Eileen Myles
- from Shooting Script, Adrienne Rich
- For John Clare, John Ashbery
- from Letters to James Alexander, Jack Spicer
- from Vigils, John Lehmann
- A Day, Rabindranath Tagore
- Roastbeef., Gertrude Stein
Some of my favs:
- Some Fears, Emily Berry
- Other Things, Alvin Pang (!!!!!!!)
- The Poet, Eileen Myles
- from Shooting Script, Adrienne Rich
- For John Clare, John Ashbery
- from Letters to James Alexander, Jack Spicer
- from Vigils, John Lehmann
- A Day, Rabindranath Tagore
- Roastbeef., Gertrude Stein
crowcolour's review against another edition
3.0
Objectively, this book ought to earn five stars: it's hard to imagine a more comprehensive collection of prose poems, though I would have preferred a more traditional chronological ordering.
From a purely personal standpoint however, my problem was that a great deal of prose poetry veers towards surrealism, which I am far from fond of. Nevertheless, there are some great pieces here from many big names, and I found the introduction very interesting.
From a purely personal standpoint however, my problem was that a great deal of prose poetry veers towards surrealism, which I am far from fond of. Nevertheless, there are some great pieces here from many big names, and I found the introduction very interesting.
aceface's review
4.0
My main attraction to this book was the form of the prose poem itself. I'd been shown a few and come across some in the past, but I felt like I needed to come to grips with what they are and how they work when they're working best. This book was definitely a help in that search.
The introduction doesn't give any clear definitions, but I think that was helpful in some respects - it just gave me the push to get into it, read through them and find my own definition.
The simplest definition of a prose poem I can find is 'a poem where there are no line breaks or stanzas - paragraphs take their place.' When coming across one of the poems in this book that was really working, its layout and form seemed incidental; they took the backseat while the language did the work.
There were definitely some poems in here that were tough to get through. Some were boring, monotonous, totally uninspiring (some missing the mark of the poetic so far that they made it into the territory of 'bad prose') but I don't mind that, since they were outshined by some true gems. I feel like that's the case with any anthology, and you just have to move through and find what works best for you in that moment.
Some of my favourites were -
'The End of Days' by Golan Haji
'The Mysterious Arrival of an Unusual Letter' by Mark Strand
'Kuchh Vakya' by Udayan Vajpeyi
'Hammer and Nail' by Naomi Shihab Nye
'The Dogs' by Yves Bonnefoy
'Cloistered' by Seamus Heaney
'it' by Inger Christensen
'Clock' by Pierre Riverdy
'Around the Star's Throne' by Hans Arp
'The Pleasures of the Door' by Francis Ponge
'In Praise of Glass' by Gabriela Mistral
'Winter Night' by Georg Trakl
and
'From the Waters of Babylon' by Emma Lazarus
I'd also highly recommend the Rimbaud, Turgenev, Baudelaire and Bertrand selections that close the book.
(I found it funny that most of my favourites were translations. I'll definitely be checking out some of those authors.)
All in all, I feel that this is a good book on the whole. There's plenty that I don't love in it, which is OK, but there are some real treasures in here that truly make up for it.
The introduction doesn't give any clear definitions, but I think that was helpful in some respects - it just gave me the push to get into it, read through them and find my own definition.
The simplest definition of a prose poem I can find is 'a poem where there are no line breaks or stanzas - paragraphs take their place.' When coming across one of the poems in this book that was really working, its layout and form seemed incidental; they took the backseat while the language did the work.
There were definitely some poems in here that were tough to get through. Some were boring, monotonous, totally uninspiring (some missing the mark of the poetic so far that they made it into the territory of 'bad prose') but I don't mind that, since they were outshined by some true gems. I feel like that's the case with any anthology, and you just have to move through and find what works best for you in that moment.
Some of my favourites were -
'The End of Days' by Golan Haji
'The Mysterious Arrival of an Unusual Letter' by Mark Strand
'Kuchh Vakya' by Udayan Vajpeyi
'Hammer and Nail' by Naomi Shihab Nye
'The Dogs' by Yves Bonnefoy
'Cloistered' by Seamus Heaney
'it' by Inger Christensen
'Clock' by Pierre Riverdy
'Around the Star's Throne' by Hans Arp
'The Pleasures of the Door' by Francis Ponge
'In Praise of Glass' by Gabriela Mistral
'Winter Night' by Georg Trakl
and
'From the Waters of Babylon' by Emma Lazarus
I'd also highly recommend the Rimbaud, Turgenev, Baudelaire and Bertrand selections that close the book.
(I found it funny that most of my favourites were translations. I'll definitely be checking out some of those authors.)
All in all, I feel that this is a good book on the whole. There's plenty that I don't love in it, which is OK, but there are some real treasures in here that truly make up for it.
helenmcclory's review
5.0
A fantastically rich collection, meant for dipping into over many years. I have dogeared my favourites, though these will probably change over time.
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