WELCOME TO THE GENRE BLUR!

ZOOM ROOM
(I aim to open by 5:50pm)

ZOOM ROOM

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/6750678452?pwd=dkJicjJrT3Q3MkxwdFRtUHduaEc0QT09Meeting ID: 675 067 8452Passcode: 3fzR0Y

CLASS SCHEDULE

February 26th: Week 1 Readings: THE RANT

READINGS:
Please complete these readings on THE RANT before the 1st Class on March 5th

WRITING PROMPTS:

Please have a go at completing the first writing prompt on THE RANT before the first class.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Bring a question about one of the readings to offer the class (one that you've got a good answer to).

Bring a question about one of the readings that you don't have an answer to.

March 5th: 1st Class: THE RANT

6pm-8pm Class Structure:
a) INTRODUCTIONS (approx 15 mins)

b) Interactive lecture on THE RANT (approx 15 mins)

c) Short discussion about the readings (approx 25 mins)

d) Generative Writing Time (approx 35 mins)

e) Sharing Time (approx 15 mins)

f) Take-home writing prompt to complete before the next class and final words (approx 10 mins)

8pm-9pm: up to ONE HOUR of editing/trouble-shooting time with Kyeren (10-15 min portions depending on the number of people who're interested)

March 6th: Week 2 Readings & 2nd Prompt

READINGS:
Please complete the readings on THE DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE before the 2nd Class on March 12th

WRITING PROMPTS:
Please complete your second RANT writing prompt and your first DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE writing prompt before the 2nd class

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Bring a question about one of the readings to offer the class (one that you've got a good answer to).

Bring a question about one of the readings that you don't have an answer to.

March 12th: 2nd Class: THE DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE

6pm-8pm Class Structure:
a) Interactive lecture on THE DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE

b) Short discussion about the readings

c) Generative Writing Time

d) Sharing Time

e) Take-home writing prompt to complete before the next class

8pm-9pm: up to ONE HOUR of editing/trouble-shooting time with Kyeren (10 min portions)

March 13th: Week 3 Readings & 2nd Prompt

READINGS:
Please complete these readings before the 3rd Class on March 19th
WRITING PROMPTS:
Please complete your second DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE writing prompt and your first MICROFICTION writing prompts before the 3rd class

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Bring a question about one of the readings to offer the class (one that you've got a good answer to).

Bring a question about one of the readings that you don't have an answer to.

March 19th: 3rd Class: MICROFICTION

6pm-8pm Class Structure:
a) Interactive lecture on MICROFICTION

b) Short discussion about the readings

c) Generative Writing Time

d) Sharing Time

e) Take-home writing prompt to complete before the next class

8pm-9pm: up to ONE HOUR of editing/trouble-shooting time with Kyeren (10 min portions)

March 20th: Week 4 Readings & 2nd Prompt

READINGS:

Please complete these readings before the 4th Class on March 26th

WRITING PROMPTS:
Please complete your second MICROFICTION writing prompt and your first PROSE POEM writing prompt before the 4th class

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Bring a question about one of the readings to offer the class (one that you've got a good answer to).

Bring a question about one of the readings that you don't have an answer to.

March 26th: 4th Class: THE PROSE POEM

6pm-8pm Class Structure:
a) Interactive lecture on THE PROSE POEM

b) Short discussion about the readings

c) Generative Writing Time

d) Sharing Time

e) Take-home writing prompt to complete before the next class

f) Preparing a reading (tips and timekeeping)

8pm-9pm: up to ONE HOUR of editing/trouble-shooting time with Kyeren (10 min portions)

March 27th: 2nd Prompt & Reading Order

WRITING PROMPT:

Please complete your second PROSE POEM writing prompt before the reading.

READING PREPARATION:

Please select the pieces for your reading and time yourself reading them for April 5th.

If you have any introductory comments you'd like to share before any of your pieces, please prepare those too.

BONUS CLASS: April 2nd: Zoom Reading 6pm-8pm

An online reading!
Each writer will have a set amount of time to share several pieces they've written and worked on.

WHEN WE DISCUSS THE READINGS IN THE PACKAGES we'll focus on the voice, structure, pacing, style, POV, psychic distance, sentence structure... all the minutia of craft--how is this piece working? What did we love/detest and why? And of course, how does the writing blurring between the genres? We'll looking at what the readings can teach us about the cross-genre form, and if/how they've inspired us. We'll be on the hunt for ways to solve any problems we have in our own work. We'll also be looking and listening for ways to deepen our own work.

AFTER THIS CLASS:
Check out the Resources Page--there's a link to the journals recognized by the Canadian Magazine Awards, and also a section full of Canadian Chapbook Publishers... I warmly encourage you to spend additional time editing and send your work out. :)

CALENDAR:

1. PLEASE schedule time in your calendar to complete THE READINGS and WRITING PROMPTS each week.

2. PLEASE also schedule EDITING TIME

Recommended Time:
30 mins to an hour x 2 for the prompts

Approximately 1 hour for the readings

1-2 hours on 3-5 days for editing

(If you schedule it, you're more likely to complete it all, and you'll have a 12 Genre Blurred pieces at the end, which is enough for a chapbook, or the beginning of a project... )

A BRIEF AND INCOMPLETE HISTORY OF THE RANT
(scroll down to the next section for March 5th readings)

From Merriam-Webster: RANT
: to talk in a noisy, excited, or declamatory manner
: to scold vehemently

: to utter in a bombastic declamatory fashion

The term Rant came to life during the 1600's as a name given to sectarian groups (emerging as a response to the second English civil war) often speaking against aspects of the Christian church. Interestingly, "Ranters" wasn't a self-devised name, rather an insult bestowed by their enemies.

The literary rant emerges as an impassioned, often unfiltered form of speech, breaking conventional constraints of structure and decorum. While it's roots in oral tradition stretch back to much earlier times (e.g. Achilles's speech in Homer's The Iliad or The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales), in written literature it surfaces prominently in genres that emphasize voice, rhythm, and an urgent or disruptive tone. The Ranters of the 17th century established the term’s cultural meaning, but the form itself—intense, emotive, often polemical speech—has been a part of literary and rhetorical traditions for as long as people have been speaking and writing. It moves through religious, philosophical, and dramatic traditions before finding its place in prose literature. So in a sense, rants have always been around. The difference is that they weren’t called rants until the term solidified in the 1600s. Here are a few more earlier examples: Shakespeare's monologue for King Lear: "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!" and Epictetus's Stoic discourse about freedom. And Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground (1864) which is a fevered monologue that exposes contradictions, self-loathing, and rebellion against rationalism and considered a prototype for the existential rant.

Modernist & Early 20th Century Uses include: James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), particularly the Circe and Penelope episodes, where characters engage in intense, associative, near-surrealist rants; Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons (1914), although experimental and fragmented, it has the rhythm and intensity of a rant, deconstructing meaning itself; Dada and Surrealist Manifestos (1916–1930s), these aggressively anti-establishment texts are performative rants, often delivered in a declarative, breathless rush.

Mid-20th Century: The Beat & Confessional Rants: Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957), spontaneous prose that often spirals into ecstatic, stream-of-consciousness rants; Allen Ginsberg’s Howl (1956), though lineated, Howl is crucial in how it shaped the rant’s musical, incantatory rhythm; William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch (1959), a mix of rants and hallucinatory, nonlinear monologues.; Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), Gonzo journalism adopts the rant as an authoritative, immersive technique.

Late 20th Century to Present: Postmodern & Contemporary Rants: Thomas Bernhard (1970s–1980s), his novels The Loser and Correction are essentially uninterrupted rants, recursive, neurotic, and relentless. Essex Hempill's Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry (1992), particularly "Family Jewels" which critiques white bigotry within the gay community, addressing the fetishization and objectification of Black men; David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996), features nested, spiraling rants in footnotes and narrative.; Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other (2019), prose written with rhythmic breathlessness, verging on poetic rant; Sister Spit: Writing, Rants and Reminiscence from the Road: Edited by Michelle Tea, this anthology features genre-bending essays, stories, and rants that tackle topics ranging from identity and sexuality to societal norms.

On Pain of Speech: Fantasies of the First Order and the Literary Rant by Dina Al-Kassim (University of California Press, 2010) "On Pain of Speech tracks the literary rant, an expression of provocation and resistance that imagines the power to speak in its own name where no such right is granted."

Rick Mercer's Rants: We can't talk about the rant without remembering Rick--if you've not seen one of Rick's Rants before, check a few out. They're over a decade old, but they're well-written, and even though they criticize, they offer a rare positive slant on current affairs. Would they work nowadays?

For something a bit fun (and also fairly appalling): the semi-famous Craigslist NYC Subway Rant: HERE

THE RANT: March 5th Readings
Book covers are linked to the readings
& titles are linked to publishers.

How to Write About Africa by Binyavanga Wainaina (Penguin Random House Canada, 2024) Controlled satirical (and funny) rant critiquing the way white people write about Africa.

Absence of Wings by Arleen Paré (Caitlin Press, 2023) Four small pieces about "A." (Are they rants, monolouges, prose poems, anecdotes?) Finalist for the Victoria Butler Book Prize.

Nishga by Jordan Abel (Penguin Canada, 2024) Four small pieces from his superb genre-defying book: winner of the VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Award and the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize.

"Monday" from the weather by Lisa Robertson (New Star Books, 2001) An alternative rant.

Joy is so Exhausting by Susan Holbrook (Coach House Books, 2009) (also published in White Ink, 2007). A stream-of-consciousness monologue-poem-rant, both experimental and experiential.

"#42" from Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace (Back Bay Books, 2000) "Transcripts from fictional interviews that portray men’s hidden inner lives. The interrogator invisible and his questions omitted, the interviews read like confessional monologues."

WRITING PROMPTS: Week 1

RANT PROMPT 1.

Write a Rant in the style of Binyavanga Wainaina: "How to write about..." (anything that is stereotyped, preferably something you know a lot about and can draw from personal experience)

Use the same/similiar anaphora (repeated words/phrases at beginnings of sentences): "Always..." and "Never..."

Use stereotypes like Wainaina, pushing them and finding fresh descriptions/images/metaphors. It's the friction between the expected and the surprising that makes it work so well.

(It can simply be a paragraph--it doesn't need to be a full essay!)

Bring it to our first class on Wed 5th! :)

RANT PROMPT 2:

The Disguised Rant (inspired by Arleen Pare)

Write a rant that pretends not to be a rant:

•Choose something that infuriates/upsets you, something you can’t change

•Disguise it with a calm tone and use a personal anecdote to demonstrate how you feel.

•

Possible Opening Lines:

“The problem with….

“It’s not a big deal, except that…”

Explore the tension between how we want to sound and what we really feel.

RANT PROMPT 3:

The Fragmented Memory Rant (inspired by Jordan Abel)

Write a rant in fragments:

·Choose a single theme—loss, identity, erasure, silencing...

·Break it into small fragmented sections, as if your thoughts are scattered or interrupted.

Begin each section with:

“I remember…”

“I used to…”

Capture the rawness of a mind circling the same place or idea without resolution.

RANT PROMPT 4:

The Metafictional Rant (after David Foster Wallace)

Write a rant from the perspective of another person/character/historical figure/social stereotype

Begin with something you’ve been holding back—an unpopular opinion, a hidden truth, or a moment when you stayed silent.

·Build slowly at first, as if testing the waters, then let the floodgates open.

·Embrace catharsis: end with a sense of release, like what needed to be said has finally been said.

Explore unrestrained honesty beneath the cloak of someone other than yourself.

A BRIEF AND INCOMPLETE HISTORY OF THE MONOLOGUE

(scroll down to the next section for March 12th readings)

The Unreliable, the Unfiltered, the Unconfessed

The dramatic monologue is about voice—but also about silence: the audience who never speaks, the truths that slip out sideways, the characters who reveal themselves even as they try to hide. Its power lies in its ability to make us complicit, to turn us into the silent listener who must judge, condemn, or forgive.

But long before there were stages, books, or poetry collections, people were speaking their truths, unfiltered and impassioned, to anyone who would listen—or to no one at all. The dramatic monologue, the rant, the lyrical outpouring—these forms aren’t inventions so much as reflections of something essentially human.

The dramatic monologue emerges as a voice-driven, confessional form of speech that exposes the speaker’s inner conflicts, often revealing more than intended. While its formal roots are in Victorian poetry—most famously in Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess—the essence of the dramatic monologue stretches back much further, into oral traditions and ancient epics. From the lamentations of Gilgamesh in Mesopotamia to the conflicted speeches of Ovid’s Medea, the form has always been about one voice, speaking directly, unfiltered, and often unaware of the truths it betrays.

The dramatic monologue thrives on this tension—between what the speaker wants to reveal and what slips out. Its power lies in the confessional tone, the careful control of what is said, and the uncomfortable intimacy with which it draws the audience in (of course the dramatic monologue can also be a rant or part-rant, it can share story, and it's often best when it utilities poetic device...)

While the term itself was solidified in the 19th century, the practice of revealing character through a single, uninterrupted voice has been part of storytelling since humans first spoke their truths around fires. Early examples include the speeches of Achilles in The Iliad and Mahabharata’s Arjuna, whose monologue on the battlefield becomes an existential crisis disguised as dialogue, and the Jewish dramatist Ezekiel’s Exagōgē presents Moses’s extended speeches on faith and leadership. In oral traditions, griots from Africa and storytellers from Indigenous cultures performed monologue, using speeches that preserved memory and tradition.

By the time writers refined the form in later years, the dramatic monologue was already ancient, its essence unchanged: preserving culture; capturing the zeitgeist; a voice speaking into the silence, often betraying more than it intends.

In the Renaissance, Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists transformed the monologue into an exploration of guilt, ambition, and existential dread. We can't not think of Shakespeare’s soliloquies, like Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” and Lady Macbeth’s “Out, damned spot!” Or Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus (1604) and John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi (1613). This era solidified the dramatic monologue’s power to capture unreliable voices and self-betrayal—foreshadowing its evolution in modern and postmodern literature. But before we reached the modern era, Victorian poetry refined the form again, e.g. Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess (1842) and Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Ulysses (1842).

In the early 20th century, the dramatic monologue shifted towards modernist poetry, exploring fractured identities and unreliable narrators. T.S. Eliot’s "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915) captured urban alienation with a self-conscious, confessional tone. Langston Hughes' "Mother to Son" (1922) brought the monologue into the Harlem Renaissance, blending the rhythms of oral tradition with themes of resilience. It could be argued that the form’s evolution mirrored a broader literary shift towards voices that revealed more through what they tried to conceal.

By the mid-20th century, the dramatic monologue had fused with confessional poetry, exposing the darkest edges of the human psyche. Sylvia Plath’s "Lady Lazarus" (1965) and Ai’s "Killing Floor" (1979) confronted trauma and survival. Samuel Beckett’s Not I (1972) reduced the monologue to a disembodied mouth’s confession.

In the late 20th century and beyond, the dramatic monologue embraced diverse voices and cross-genre experimentation. Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife (1999) gave voice to mythic and historical women. Kristen Thomson's play I, Claudia, is entirely comprised of dramatic monologues. Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric (2014) used fragmented monologues to expose racial injustice. Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky with Exit Wounds (2016) blended monologue, lyric, and narrative to explore memory, war, and queer identity.

THE DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE: March 12th Readings

"Steve" from Wild Abandon by Daniel MacIvor (and other monolouges)

A Song of the Corner by Xi Chuan (The Chinese University Press, 2011)

"Nothing" from Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong (Penguin, 2022)

Excerpt of "Burn Man on a Texas Porch" from 19 Knives by Mark Anthony Jarman (House of Anansi, 2009). This is not the whole short story, just the very voicey introductory monologue.

Prologue for the Age of Consequence by Garth Martens (House of Anansi, 2014)

The Party Train Ed. Robert Alexander, Mark Vinz & C.W. Truesdale (New Rivers Press, 1996)

WRITING PROMPTS: Week 2

DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE PROMPT 1.

The Deadpan Epistrophe (inspired by W.R. Rodriguez)

Write a dramatic monologue that uses an everyday phrase as epistrophe (the repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive sentences) to create a deadpan voice. Choose a phrase like “I suppose,” “that’s just how it is,” “or so they say,” or “if you can believe it” and repeat it at the end of sentences to build a rhythm that feels both resigned and darkly humorous.

Begin with a seemingly ordinary situation—something everyday, almost mundane—but let the details spiral gradually into something darker or more absurd.
Use deadpan descriptions and a flat, almost indifferent tone to amplify the tension between what is being said and what is actually happening.
End with a line that leaves the reader unsure if they should laugh, feel disturbed, or both.

Explore how voice can turn a simple narrative into something unsettlingly ambiguous.

DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE PROMPT 2.

The Unreliable Narrator (inspired by Xi Chuan's The Neighbors)

Write a dramatic monologue from the perspective of a narrator who reveals more about themselves than they intend.

Choose a setting where the narrator feels trapped or watched—an apartment, a small town, a workplace.
Use the tension between what the narrator claims to feel and what they actually reveal.
Blend paranoia with moments of startling honesty.

Possible Opening Lines:

"I'm not saying they're watching me, but…"
"Of course, I keep to myself—I mind my own business."
"It’s not that I care what they think, I just wish they'd stop talking."

Focus on the gap between the narrator's words and what they inadvertently reveal about their fears, loneliness, or guilt.

PDF: Dramatic Monologue Slideshow

More Monologue Writing Prompts

DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE PROMPT 3.

The Antihero’s Manifesto (inspired by Johnny Lightning and the Safety Meeting)

Write a dramatic monologue from the perspective of someone who doesn’t want to be a hero but ends up being one anyway—in the most reluctant way possible.

·Hook: Begin with a complaint that escalates, e.g. "All I wanted was to be left alone—turns out that's asking too much."

·Create Tension: Introduce internal/external conflicts—make the speaker struggle against the system/their own better nature. Reveal information gradually to build suspense.

·Create Momentum: Use emotionally charged language to maintain intensity. Compress time: Enter Late—Leave Early.

·Character: Create a unique and yet recognizably human character, e.g. cynical yet uncomfortably right.

·Cheat the Tense: E.g. move between past mistakes and present dilemmas to keep the reader guessing.

Explore how disillusionment and decency can exist side by side.

DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE PROMPT 4.

The Weight of History (inspired by A Sanskrit Brick from Nanzhao)

Write a dramatic monologue from the perspective of someone confronted by an ancient object that awakens questions about memory, loss, and history. The object could be a personal, ancestral relic or something with broader historical significance.

·Hook: Begin with a strong, unique voice and a question that draws the reader in: "What if it had never been found?"

·Create Tension: Focus on the conflict between what the speaker wants to forget and what they cannot let go. Reveal information bit by bit to build suspense.

·Create Momentum: Use withholding to leave gaps in the narrative, allowing readers to fill in the blanks. Minimal Exposition, Maximum Action: Let every word propel the monologue forward without overwhelming the reader with explanations.

·Character: Create a unique and yet recognizably human character, flawed and burdened by the weight of history.

·Cheat the Tense: Move fluidly between past and present to heighten immediacy.

Explore how history's shadows can haunt the present, and illuminate/distort...

A BRIEF AND INCOMPLETE HISTORY OF MICROFICTION

(scroll down to the next section for March 19th readings)

Microfiction, characterized by its brevity and precision, also has deep roots that stretch across cultures and centuries (of course it does, right?) Long before the written word, as you know, storytelling thrived in oral traditions, where brevity (along with poetic device) was the key to memorability. Classic examples are Aesop's Fables, Zen koans, and Indigenous oral narratives conveying life lessons succinctly.

Ancient scriptures and philosophical works also utilize concise portions of storytelling to impart wisdom—consider Biblical parables, Sufi tales, and Eastern aphorisms by thinkers like Zhuangzi and Rumi. They all captured human wisdom in minimal words.

The 19th-century Symbolist movement saw poets like Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud experimenting with prose poetry. Their works blurred the lines between poetry and narrative, emphasizing mood and compression, paving the way for modern microfiction.

Early 20th-century writers embraced brevity to explore new narrative forms. Franz Kafka's Parables and Paradoxes and Jorge Luis Borges' succinct philosophical stories exemplify this trend. Ernest Hemingway's understated, minimalist style influenced a generation of writers. His legendary six-word story—"For sale: baby shoes, never worn." Authors like Lydia Davis and Raymond Carver furthered this minimalist approach, crafting concise and emotionally resonant narratives.

The late 20th and early 21st centuries we witnessed a microfiction boom. Genres like flash fiction, sudden fiction, autofiction and Twitterature flourished in literary magazines and digital platforms—microfiction contest categories were created by national literary journals, and the form became widely popularized. Notable practitioners include Argentinian writer Ana María Shua: Dubbed the "Queen of the Microstory," notably, La sueñera.

Canadian notables include: John Gould’s Giller-nominated Kilter: 55 Fictions, Dionne Brand's Theory, Alicia Elliott’s A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, Souvankham Thammavongsa’s How to Pronounce Knife, which won the Giller Prize, Sheila Heti’s novel How Should a Person Be? which blurs the lines between fiction and autobiography.

A few excerpts for you here—two brilliant recent Canadian writers, and one long translation from Argentina (just have a look, it's 84 pages, so obviously no need to read it all—maybe just the first two pages of translations?):

"Grayness" from Pure Colour by Sheila Heti (Penguin Canada, 2023) Winner of the GG Literary Award for Fiction.

Two excerpts from Little Fortified Stories by Barbara Black (Catilin Press, 2024)

Excerpts in the Cincinnati Review linked to the cover image.

La sueñera by Ana María Shua (1984 published in Spanish) Translation by Margaux Frank

MICROFICTION:
March 19th Readings

Anecdotes by Kathryn Mockler (Book*hug Press, 2023)

Invisible Cities by Italio Calvino (Giulio Einaudi, 1972)

Kilter (Turnstone Press, 2003) & The End of Me (this links to another story from the book) (Freehand Books, 2020) by John Gould

Human Wishes by Robert Hass (Eco, 1990)

Murder in the Dark by Margaret Atwood (Coach House, 1983)

Sum: Forty Takes from the Afterlife by David Eagleman (Pantheon Books, 2009)

WRITING PROMPTS: Week 3

PROMPT 1: The Afterlife According to You

(Inspired by David Eagleman’s Sum)

Write a microfiction/genre-blured piece set in an afterlife of your own invention.

Make it strange, ironic, or unexpectedly mundane.

Avoid clichés—no pearly gates or fiery pits.

Challenge: keep it around 300-500 words: let each sentence pull its weight.

This one is a lot of fun!

Be sure to read the stories from Sum first. :)

PDF: Fiction Slideshow

A BRIEF AND INCOMPLETE HISTORY

OF THE PROSE POEM

(scroll down to the next section for March 26th readings)

The Origins: Before the Prose Poem Had a Name

Long before the term prose poem was coined, poetic prose existed in sacred, philosophical and mythological texts—of course it did, right? Ancient oral traditions blurred poetry and prose seamlessly, with early written examples emerging across different cultures. Consider Biblical texts The Psalms, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes—these lyrical and fragmented passages are infused with metaphor and read like early prose poetry. In Japanese Literature, Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi (c. 4th century BCE) wrote parables that blended poetic insight with narrative flow. In 17th-century Japan Bashō invented haibun, mixing prose with haiku. In the 13th-century works of Rumi and Attar of Nishapur poetry and prose are woven in ecstatic, image-rich language.

The prose poem as a distinct literary form began to emerge in the 19th century, largely as a rebellion against rigid poetic conventions: Aloysius Bertrand's Gaspard de la Nuit (1842) is often credited as the first intentional collection of prose poems, and then inspired by Bertrand, Charles Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen emerged in 1869. Arthur Rimbaud’s Illuminations (1886) followed, shattering boundaries with feverish, hallucinatory prose poems that anticipated Surrealism. Oscar Wilde and Earnest Dowson also helped cultivate the form.

Modernism and the Expansion of the Form (Early 20th Century)

Surrealist and Dadaist poets like André Breton (Nadja), Tristan Tzara, and Paul Éluard embraced prose poetry’s dream logic and subconscious associations. While not labeled as prose poetry, Whitman’s later writings (Specimen Days) played with poetic prose in a way that influenced later poets. We’ve already mentioned Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons (1914): A radical, cubist-inflected collection that fractured language into prose poetry hybrids.

The Global Prose Poem Renaissance

James Wright, Robert Bly, and the Deep Image Poets all brough rich metaphorical layers to American prose poetry. Latin American Poets like Paz (The Monkey Grammarian) and Alejandra Pizarnik infused prose poetry with philosophical and surrealist sensibilities. Canadian poet Anne Carson’s hybrid works (Autobiography of Red, Plainwater) pushed prose poetry into mythic, fragmented storytelling. James Tate, Russell Edson, and others created an Absurdist Strain, leaning into prose poetry’s potential for surreal humor, creating tiny worlds that teeter between dream and parable.

Contemporary Prose Poetry: The Boundaries Dissolve

In the 21st century, the prose poem exists everywhere—from flash fiction to hybrid essays. Writers of all backgrounds continue to redefine it. Some notable examples: Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric (2014), Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019), Maggie Nelson’s Bluets (2009), and Canisia Lubrin’s The Dyzgraphxst (2020).

The Form That Refuses to Be Contained

Like the rant, like the dramatic monologue, the prose poem thrives on contradiction. It is lyric but narrative, poetic but unlineated, compressed yet expansive. It resists labels, and in that resistance, it has flourished—crossing centuries, cultures, and literary movements.

Are these forms really new form—or is it that we’ve only recently given them new names?

Gaspard de la Nuit, 1868 by Aloysius Bertrand

This work may be freely reproduced, stored and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.

"In Gaspard de la Nuit Bertrand is credited with inventing the prose-poem, which later inspired Baudelaire to pen his set of prose-poems Le Spleen de Paris, while Bertrand was also admired by Mallarmé and the Symbolists, and later the Surrealists. Gaspard de la Nuit inspired a painting by Magritte, and three piano solos by Ravel."

The black and white drawing by Félicien Rops is linked to a downloadable PDF for your reading pleasure! :)