<\/p>\n
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This Line Is Not For Turning: An Anthology of Contemporary British Prose Poetry<\/em>, edited by Jane Monson, pub. Cinnamon Press 2011, price \u00a38.99, ISBN 978-1-907090-51-6<\/strong><\/p>\n At long last!\u00a0 What a delight to see an anthology of British prose poetry.\u00a0 As the editor, Jane Monson, points out in her spirited introduction, the prose poem as a form has been \u2018accepted for decades in France and America\u2019 but \u2018has until very recently been largely neglected in the UK (and this in spite of the fact that its practitioners have included: Oscar Wilde, S T Coleridge, T S Eliot, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf\u2026)\u2019.\u00a0 She asks: \u2018Why has it been the case that British editors, writers, publishers, teachers and general readers still seem to know so little about the prose poem, or refuse to engage with it?\u2019<\/p>\n The seeming absence of a definitive terminology for the form may suggest that the genre is speculative and in its infancy, but it can in fact be traced back to the work of nineteenth century French poets.\u00a0 To be sure, there has been a greater uptake of the form in the USA \u2013 but, even there, opposition has been forthcoming, ironically chronicled by Louis Jenkins, a well-known exponent of the form, in a piece called \u2018The Prose Poem\u2019 which begins:<\/p>\n The prose poem is not a real poem, of course. One of the major differences is\u00a0 that the prose poet is simply too lazy or too stupid to break the poem into lines. But all writing, even the prose poem, involves a\u00a0 certain amount of skill\u2026(1)<\/p>\n Some people admit to being puzzled by prose poems and ask: Are they poems in prose or a small slice of poetic prose?\u00a0 Aren\u2019t they sometimes the same as flash fiction?\u00a0 Is a blocked shape and justified right-hand margin compulsory?\u00a0 Can a prose poem be just like a traditional poem, but with wrap-around text formatting?\u00a0 And then there\u2019s that whole question of a possible interface with certain Japanese forms, like the haibun\u2026\u00a0 As Jane Monson says: \u2018a precise definition has been elusive at best\u2026\u2019\u00a0 Interviewed at Aldeburgh in 2007, Louis Jenkins stated that he did not have any answers for people in search of \u2018rules\u2019 about the prose poem, including the frequently occurring question of right-justified margins; he said he just does it that way because that is how he likes it.\u00a0 So it appears that the prose poem is still evolving and can evoke a strong reaction, for or against; so what exactly is the attraction for those of us who instinctively love the form?\u00a0 Does the expansiveness of a prose poem provide an approach that is different to the sharp focus of a traditional poem?\u00a0 I think Louis Jenkins came somewhere close to answering these questions in the same interview, when he added that it was \u2018the freedom of the prose poem\u2019 which first attracted him, \u2018its flexibility which allows language that is lyrical to co-exist with that which is prosaic\u2019.<\/p>\n Although prose poems in the past have displayed a range of functions, e.g. to convey a philosophical discourse, a tendency existed to expect that the form may perhaps play host to a narrative of some kind: what Nikki Santilli, in the foreword, refers to as \u2018mainstream microfictional prose poems\u2019.\u00a0 This anthology contains many fine and varied examples of such work, but also sets out to explore the form further \u2013 or wider \u2013 by \u2018showcasing a variety of styles, tones and structures\u2019, including prose poems which experiment with the form, sometimes by deploying the techniques of traditional poetry, e.g. use of white space or indented lines; reference to the haibun by ending with a brief verse form; or by engaging with metaphysical subject matter more traditionally addressed in lyric poetry, but without \u2018the sharp music of short lines\u2019(2).\u00a0 But even a long-line poem directs the reader via the poet\u2019s selection of line endings and the emphasis that this implies, so perhaps what unifies the prose poem \u2013 in all its many possible formats \u2013 is that it leaves more room for the reader to operate within the text.\u00a0 As in real life, they sift the details of a subject or event and extrapolate beyond the text in a way that is perhaps more tentative and naturalistic, less obviously directed by the writer.<\/p>\n Nikki Santilli says that she hopes the book \u2018will operate above ground as an introduction to the genre\u2026\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 I think the anthology has definitely succeeded in this aim, showcasing a wide range of poets and styles, with subjects ranging from social satire to the surreal.\u00a0 Also, it has to be said that, working in a minority literary form on a small island with an illustrious poetic tradition, it is all too easy to have been deemed to have broken the rules and, in some quarters, the prose poem has been regarded as an upstart form \u2013 or no form at all; so it is wonderful to see poets of the stature of Georg Szirtes and Pascale Petit represented in this volume, emphasising the point that the prose poem is most certainly not just a cop-out for those unable to write a traditional poem.<\/p>\n This collection is worth buying just to revel in the inspirational range of prose poem styles; also for the dazzling, metaphysical mastery of Georg Szirtes; and the sheer heart-rending humanity of \u2018Unavailable\u2019 by Sylvia Fairclough, which was able to achieve so much in so few words, using prose poetry to echo the non-fiction formats of a juggernaut bureaucracy:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Unavailable<\/strong><\/p>\n Someone had folded her clothes and put them on the bed, stripped In smudged red ink, someone had stamped: UNAVAILABLE.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1.\u00a0 From The Winter Road<\/em> by Louis Jenkins, pub. Holy Cow! Press, Minnesota, USA, 2000. 2.\u00a0 The Making of a Poem<\/em>, ed. Mark Strand and Eavan Boland, pub. Norton, USA, 2000 (page 140).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2026.Review-essay by Beverly Ellis<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This Line Is Not For Turning: An Anthology of Contemporary British Prose Poetry, edited by Jane Monson, pub. Cinnamon Press 2011, price \u00a38.99, ISBN 978-1-907090-51-6 At long last!\u00a0 What a delight to see an anthology of British prose poetry.\u00a0 As the editor, Jane Monson, points out in her spirited introduction, the prose poem […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22734"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22738,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22734\/revisions\/22738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nnow to a thick plastic sheet. On top of her nightie was a menu card;
\nunder \u2018special requests\u2019 she had scratched rarsbries.<\/p>\n