The French Prose Poem An Anthology

The first English-language collection of its kind, this anthology offers an overview of the past and present history of a long-underappreciated—and now quickly burgeoning—poetic tradition.

For decades, the prose poem has variously delighted, confounded, and incensed readers and critics. Until recent years, it had been confined to the margins of literary history as a rather disturbing and elusive oddity. All this is changing.

The prose poem, which has long been neglected and underrepresented in mainstream and experimental publications alike, is growing in popularity in the world of contemporary poetry. It is more widely available than ever before, thanks to the joint efforts of an ever-increasing number of imaginative writers, publishers, and editors. And still, this volume is the first anthology of the French prose poem to see the light in the English-speaking world.

This anthology gathers a wide range of poets practicing what Michael Riffaterre memorably called “the literary genre with an oxymoron for a name,” from the prose poem’s official “inventors” (Aloysius Bertrand and Charles Baudelaire) to a younger generation of poets from all over the French-speaking world. The poems in this bilingual collection have been rendered into English by some of the finest translators of French literature, including John Ashbery, Mark Polizzotti, Richard Sieburth, Rosmarie Waldrop, and many others.

Mary Ann Caws is a scholar of English, French, and comparative literature and serves as Distinguished Professor Emerita at the graduate school of the City University of New York. Caws is an Officier of 
Ordre des Palmes académiques and Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, and a former Trustee of the Alliance Francaise. She has translated numerous works from the French and is the editor of Pierre Reverdy, also available from NYRB Poets.

Michel Delville is a Belgian musician, writer, and critic. He teaches English and American literature at the University of Liège, where he also directs the Interdisciplinary Center for Applied Poetics. His awards and distinctions include the 1998 SAMLA Book Award, the Choice Outstanding Book Award, and the Léon Guérin Prize.