Dear Chris,
Interesting questions. I remember attending a panel on the lyric poem and then later a panel on the narrative poem and finding the same poems being used as examples! There's so much variance in how the poet defines a lyric versus a narrative poem, particularly if the lyric can, and often does, have narrative elements.
My own feeling about this is that it is a matter of time. That a lyric poem is, for whatever else one may say of it, a single moment of time. And a narrative poem is a movement in time. So I would think that a prose poem, like a poem that is not a prose poem, could be either lyric or narrative. And of course, if it were lyric, it could also contain narrative elements.
Best,
Rebecca
Rebecca Seiferle
www.thedrunkenboat.com
I have just been reading about prose poems at:
>
> http://www.gu.edu.au/school/art/text/oct02/letters.htm
>
>
>Tom Shapcott in this article suggests that prose poems are lyrical, that
>is, do not have narrative. I was wondering if it were possible to have a
>prose poem which contains some element of narrative?
>
>Also:
>
>Anna Gibbs noted in her paper on feminism and fictocriticism
>(TextOctober 1997):
>http://www.gu.edu.au/school/art/text/oct97/gibbs.htm,
>that the prose poem is one of the 'indeterminate forms' of 'literary
>detritus' that fictocriticism makes use of.
>
>
>I was wondering if anyone was interested in commenting on prose poems?
>
>Also, would anyone who writes prose poems (or similar?) be interested in
>posting examples they may have? joanne burns is one recent example I can
>think of in the Australian context which does something different in
>terms of prose poems (also perhaps blurring dramatic monolog into prose
>poem.)
>
>Finally, maybe one for the translators, is there something which could
>be said about the French language which may have contributed to French
>prose poems? (Please excuse the crudity of that question, but I don't
>know how to formulate it... so you can tear into the question if that
>helps.)
>
>I am also thinking of Genet's books, esp Prisoner of Love, as prose
>poems with (lyric)narrative.
>
>Comments on what I said, not expected, but if anyone can say anything, I
>would be interested to hear.
>
>best
>
>Chris Jones.
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