Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present

by Unknown

  Richard Deming: “Requiem” appeared in Quarter After Eight. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Edwin Denby: “Aaron” from Collected Poems (Full Court Press, 1975). Reprinted by permission of Yvonne Jacquette, executrix of the Denby estate.

  Linh Dinh: “Fish Eyes” and “The Most Beautiful Word” from All Around What Empties Out (Tinfish, 2002). Copyright (c) by Linh Dinh. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Rita Dove: “Kentucky, 1833” from The Yellow House on the Corner (Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 1980). Copyright (c) 1980 by Rita Dove. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Denise Duhamel: “A Nap on the Afternoon of My 39th Birthday” appeared in 5 am. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Jamey Dunham: “An American Story” appeared in Key Satch(el) and In-Posse Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Christopher Edgar: “In C” appeared in The Germ. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Russell Edson: “A Performance at Hog Theater,” “The Pilot,” “The Taxi,” “The Rat’s Tight Schedule,” and “The Canoeing Trip” from The Tunnel: Selected Poems (Oberlin College Press, Field poetry series). Copyright (c) 1994 by Russell Edson. Reprinted by permission of the poet. “The New Father” from The Tormented Mirror. Copyright (c) 2001 by Russell Edson. Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.

  Lynn Emanuel: “inside gertrude stein” from Then, Suddenly. Copyright (c) 1999 by Lynn Emanuel. Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.

  Aaron Fogel: “The Chessboard Is on Fire” from Boulevard and The Best American Poetry 1990. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Carolyn Forché: “The Colonel” from The Country Between Us. Copyright (c) 1982 by Carolyn Forché. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins. Originally appeared in Women’s International Resource Exchange.

  Michael Friedman: “Lecture,” “Death,” and “State.” Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Amy Gerstler: “Dear Boy George” from The True Bride (Lapis Press, 1986). Copyright (c) by Amy Gerstler. Reprinted by permission of the poet. “Bitter Angel” from Bitter Angel (North Point Press, 1990; Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 1998). Copyright (c) by Amy Gerstler. Reprinted by permission of the poet. “The Bear-Boy of Lithuania” from Medicine. Copyright (c) 2000 by Amy Gerstler. Reprinted by permission of the poet and Penguin Putnam.

  Allen Ginsberg: “A Supermarket in California” from Collected Poems: 1947–1980. Copyright (c) 1955 by Allen Ginsberg. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins.

  John Godfrey: “So Let’s Look At It Another Way” from Where the Weather Suits My Clothes (Z Press, 1984). Copyright (c) by John Godfrey. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Gabriel Gudding: “A Defense of Poetry” from A Defense of Poetry. Copyright (c) 2002 by Gabriel Gudding. Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press. First appeared in Conduit.

  Barbara Guest: “Color” from The Confetti Trees. Copyright (c) 1999 by Barbara Guest. Reprinted by permission of the poet and Sun & Moon Press.

  Carla Harryman: “Magic (or Rousseau)” and “Matter” from There Never Was a Rose Without a Thorn. Reprinted by permission of the poet and City Lights Books.

  Matthea Harvey: “The Crowd Cheered as Gloom Galloped Away” appeared in Ploughshares. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Robert Hass: “A Story About the Body,” “In the Bahamas,” and “Tall Windows” from Human Wishes. Copyright (c) 1989 by Robert Hass. Reprinted by permission of the poet and HarperCollins.

  Lyn Hejinian: three sections from My Life (“We have come a long way from what we actually felt,” “I wrote my name in every one of his books,” and “Yet we insist that life is full of happy chance”). Copyright (c) 1987 by Lyn Hejinian. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Ernest Hemingway: “Montparnasse” from 88 Poems. Copyright (c) 1979 by the Ernest Hemingway Foundation and Nicholas Gerogiannis. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt.

  John Hollander: “The Way We Walk Now,” “Crocus Solus,” and “Not Something for Nothing” from In Time and Place (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). Copyright (c) by John Hollander. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Fanny Howe: “Doubt” appeared in Seneca Review and The Best American Poetry 2001. Reprinted by permission of the poet. “Everything’s a Fake” from One Crossed Out. Copyright (c) 1997 by Fanny Howe. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press.

  David Ignatow: “I sink back upon the ground . . .” from New and Collected Poems, 1970–1985. Reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press. “The Story of Progress” appeared in Verse and The Best American Poetry 1999. Reprinted by permission of Yaedi Ignatow.

  Mark Jarman: “Epistle” appeared in American Poetry Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Lisa Jarnot: “Still Life” and “Ode” from Ring of Fire (Zoland Books, 2001). Copyright (c) 2001 by Lisa Jarnot. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Louis Jenkins: “Appointed Rounds” and “Football” from An Almost Human Gesture (Eighties Press and Ally Press, 1987). Copyright (c) by Louis Jenkins. Reprinted by permission of the poet. “The Prose Poem” from The Winter Road. Copyright (c) 2000 by Louis Jenkins. Reprinted by permission of the poet and Holy Cow! Press.

  Peter Johnson: “Pretty Happy!” from Pretty Happy! (White Pine Press, 1997). “Tex-Mex” from Miracles Mortifications (White Pine Press, 2001). Copyright (c) by Peter Johnson. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Jennifer Knox: “Hot Ass Poem” appeared in Shout. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Kenneth Koch: “On Happiness,” “The Allegory of Spring,” and “The Wish to Be Pregnant” from Hotel Lambosa (Coffee House Press, 1993). Copyright (c) 1993 by Kenneth Koch. Reprinted by permission of Karen Koch, executrix of the literary estate of Kenneth Koch.

  Yusef Komunyakaa: “Nude Interrogation,” “The Hanoi Market,” and “A Summer Night in Hanoi” from Pleasure Dome. Copyright (c) 2001 by Yusef Komunyakaa. Reprinted by permission of the poet and Wesleyan University Press.

  Ruth Krauss: “News” appeared in Locus Solus #2. Reprinted by permission of the editors of Locus Solus.

  Katherine Lederer: “According to the Appetites” from Faith (Idiom Press, 1998). Copyright (c) 1998 by Katherine Lederer. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Sarah Manguso: “Nepenthe” appears by permission of the poet. “What We Miss” from The Captain Lands in Paradise (Alice James Books, 2002). Copyright (c) 2002 by Sarah Manguso. Reprinted by permission of the poet and Alice James Books.

  Dionisio D. Martínez: “Avant-Dernières Pensées” from Bad Alchemy (W.W. Norton & Co., 1995). Copyright (c) 1995 by Dionisio D. Martínez. Reprinted by permission of the poet and W.W. Norton & Co.

  Harry Mathews: “A man and a woman marry,” “In bright late-winter sunlight,” and “If you decided to decode” from 20 Lines a Day. Copyright (c) 1988 by Harry Mathews. Reprinted by permission of the poet and Dalkey Archive Press.

  Bernadette Mayer: “Visions or Desolation” from The Desires of Mothers to Please Others in Letters (Hard Press, 1994). Copyright (c) by Bernadette Mayer. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Campbell McGrath: “The Prose Poem” from Road Atlas: Prose & Other Poems. Copyright (c) 1999 by Campbell McGrath. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins.

  James Merrill: “River Trip,” “Sanctum,” and “In the Shop” from “Prose of Departure” in Collected Poems, edited by J. D. McClatchy and Stephen Yenser. Copyright (c) 2001 by the literary estate of James Merrill at Washington University. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf.

  W. S. Merwin: “Humble Beginning,” “The Dachau Shoe,” “Our Jailer,” and “The Lonely Child.” Copyright (c) 1970 by W. S. Merwin. Reprinted by permission of the Wylie Agency.

  Czeslaw Milosz: “Esse” from The Collected Poems: 1931–1987, translated by the poet with Robert Pinsky. Copyright (c) 1988 by Czeslaw Milosz Royalties. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins.
“Be Like Others” from Road-Side Dog, translated by the poet with Robert Hass. Copyright (c) 1998 by Czeslaw Milosz. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

  Thylias Moss: “An Anointing” from Rainbow Remnants in Rock Bottom Ghetto Sky. Copyright (c) 1991 by Thylias Moss. Reprinted by permission of Persea Books.

  Harryette Mullen: “Variation on a Theme Park,” “The Anthropic Principle,” and “Sleeping with the Dictionary” from Sleeping with the Dictionary (University of California Press, 2002). Copyright (c) 2002 by Harryette Mullen. Reprinted by permission of the poet and the University of California Press.

  Alice Notley: “Untitled” is reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Frank O’Hara: “Meditations in an Emergency” from The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara, edited by Donald Allen, and “Schoenberg” from Poems Retrieved (1977). Reprinted by permission of Maureen Granville-Smith

  Ron Padgett: “Light as Air” from New & Selected Poems, 1963–1992. Copyright (c) 1995 by Ron Padgett. Reprinted by permission of David R. Godine. “Album” from You Never Know. Copyright (c) 2002 by Ron Padgett. Reprinted with the permission of Coffee House Press.

  Michael Palmer: “A word is coming up on the screen . . .” from Codes Appearing: Poems 1979–1988. Copyright (c) 1981, 1984, 1988 by Michael Palmer. Reprinted by permission of New Directions.

  Kenneth Patchen: “In Order To” and “Delighted with Bluepink” from The Collected Poems of Kenneth Patchen. Copyright (c) 1954 by New Directions. Reprinted by permission of New Directions. “The Famous Boating Party” from The Famous Boating Party. Copyright (c) 1954 by New Directions. Reprinted by permission of New Directions.

  Claudia Rankine: “Intermission in Four Acts” from Plot (Grove Press, 2001). Copyright (c) 2001 by Claudia Rankine. Reprinted by permission of the poet and Grove Atlantic.

  James Richardson: “Vectors: Thirty-six Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays” from Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays (Ausable Press, 2001). Copyright (c) 2001 by James Richardson. Reprinted by permission of the poet and Ausable Press.

  Kit Robinson: “The Person” from Democracy Boulevard. Copyright (c) 1998 by Kit Robinson. Reprinted by permission of the poet and Roof Books.

  Mary Ruefle: “Monument” appeared in Seneca Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Ira Sadoff: “Seurat” from Settling Down (Houghton Mifflin, 1975). Copyright (c) by Ira Sadoff. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Leslie Scalapino: nine sections from That They Were at the Beach (North Point Press, 1985). Copyright (c) by Leslie Scalapino. The sequence here is taken from American Poetry Since 1970: Up Late, ed. Andrei Codrescu (1987). Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  James Schuyler: “Wonderful World” and “Footnote” from Collected Poems. Copyright (c) 1993 by the estate of James Schuyler. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. “Two Meditations” appeared in “A Little Anthology of the Poem in Prose,” edited by Charles Henri Ford, in New Directions #14 (1953). Reprinted by permission.

  Delmore Schwartz: “Justice” from Summer Knowledge: New and Selected Poems, 1938–1958 (Doubleday & Co., 1959). Reprinted by permission of Robert Phillips for the literary estate of Delmore Schwartz.

  Maureen Seaton: “Toy Car” from Furious Cooking. Copyright (c) 1996 by Maureen Seaton. Reprinted by permission of the poet and the University of Iowa Press. “Lateral Time” from Little Ice Age. Copyright (c) 2001 by Maureen Seaton. Reprinted by permission of the poet and Invisible Cities Press.

  Charles Simic: “We were so poor” and “It was the epoch of the masters of levitation” from The World Doesn’t End. Copyright (c) 1988 by Charles Simic. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt. “Everybody knows the story about me and Dr. Freud” from The World Doesn’t End. Copyright (c) 1987 by Charles Simic. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt. “The Magic Study of Happiness” and “Contributor’s Note” used by permission of the poet.

  Mark Strand: “In the Privacy of the Home” and “Success Story” from Sleeping with One Eye Open (Stone Wall Press, 1964). Copyright (c) Mark Strand. Reprinted by permission of the poet. “From a Lost Diary” and “Chekhov: A Sestina” from The Continuous Life. Copyright (c) 1990 by Mark Strand. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf.

  James Tate: “The Second Greatest Story Ever Told” from Hottentot Ossuary (Temple Bar Bookshop, 1974). Copyright (c) by James Tate. “Same Tits” and “The List of Famous Hats” from Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 1991). “Distance from Loved Ones” appeared in Denver Quarterly and The Best American Poetry 1990; “Rapture” appeared in Boulevard; “Bernie at the Pay-phone” appeared in Threepenny Review. All poems reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Paul Violi: “Triptych” from Breakers: Selected Long Poems. Copyright (c) 2000 by Paul Violi. Reprinted with the permission of Coffee House Press. “Acknowledgments” from Shiny. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Karen Volkman: “It Could Be a Bird” and “When Kiss Spells Contradiction” from Spa. (University of Iowa Press, 2002). Copyright (c) 2002 by Karen Volkman. Reprinted by permission of the poet and the University of Iowa Press.

  Anne Waldman: “Stereo” from Marriage: A Sentence (Penguin Poets, 2000). Copyright (c) 2000 by Anne Waldman. Reprinted by permission of the poet and Penguin Putnam.

  Wang Ping: “Of Flesh and Spirit” from Of Flesh and Spirit. Copyright (c) 1998 by Wang Ping. Reprinted with the permission of Coffee House Press.

  Rosmarie Waldrop: “You told me, if something is not used,” “In order to understand the nature of language,” “At first sight, it did not look,” “As the streets were empty in the early morning,” and “The fog was not dense enough” from The Reproduction of Profiles (New Directions, 1987). Copyright (c) 1987 by Rosmarie Waldrop. Reprinted by permission of New Directions.

  Joe Wenderoth: twelve sections from Letters to Wendy’s. Copyright (c) 2000 by Joe Wenderoth. Reprinted by permission of the poet and Verse Press.

  Tom Whalen: “Why I Hate the Prose Poem” appeared in Third Coast. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Susan Wheeler: “Invective: You Should Know” from Smokes (Four Way Books, 1998). Copyright (c) 1998 by Susan Wheeler. Reprinted by permission of the poet and Four Way Books.

  Tyrone Williams: “Cold Calls” appeared in Hambone. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Terence Winch: “Shoot the Horse” from Total Strangers: Six Short Prose Pieces (The Toothpaste Press, 1982). Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  James Wright: “On Having My Pocket Picked in Rome” and “Honey” from This Journey. Copyright (c) 1982 by Anne Wright, executrix of the estate of James Wright. Used by permission of Random House.

  John Yau: “Predella” from Radiant Silhouette: New and Selected Work 1974–1988 (Black Sparrow, 1989). “Summer Rental” from My Heart Is That Eternal Rose Tattoo (Black Sparrow, 2001). Copyright (c) 1989, 2001 by John Yau. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

  Andrew Zawacki: two prose poems from Masquerade reprinted by permission of the author. Masquerade was published by the Vagabond Press in Sydney (Australia).

  ALSO BY DAVID LEHMAN

  POETRY

  The Evening Sun

  The Daily Mirror

  Valentine Place

  Operation Memory

  An Alternative to Speech

  NONFICTION

  The Last Avant-Garde:

  The Making of the New York School of Poets

  The Big Question

  The Line Forms Here

  Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man

  The Perfect Murder: A Study in Detection

  EDITED BY DAVID LEHMAN

  The Best American Poetry (series editor)

  The KGB Bar Book of Poems (with Star Black)

  Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms: 85 Leading Contemporary Poets Select and Comment on Their Poems

  James Merrill: Essays in Criticism (with Charles Berger)

  Beyond Amazement: New Essays o
n John Ashbery

  We hope you enjoyed reading this Scribner eBook.

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  NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

  Agha Shahid Ali was born in New Delhi in 1949. He grew up Muslim in Kashmir, and was educated at the University of Kashmir, Srinagar, and the University of Delhi. He earned a Ph.D. in English from Pennsylvania State University and an MFA from the University of Arizona. His volumes of poetry include Rooms Are Never Finished (W.W. Norton & Co., 2001) and The Country Without a Post Office (W. W. Norton & Co., 1997). He taught at Hamilton College and the universities of Massachusetts and Utah. He died on December 8, 2001.

  Nin Andrews was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1958, and grew up on a farm, the youngest of six children. She attended Hamilton College and received her MFA from Vermont College. The author of The Book of Orgasms (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2000) and Spontaneous Breasts (Pearl Editions, 1997), she lives in Poland, Ohio.

  Rae Armantrout was born in Vallejo, California, in 1947. Her most recent books of poetry are The Pretext (Green Integer, 2001) and Veil: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2001). She has written a memoir called True (Atelos, 1998). She teaches writing at the University of California, San Diego.

  John Ashbery was born in Rochester, New York, in 1927. His recent books include Chinese Whispers (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002), As Umbrellas Follow Rain (Qua Press, 2001), and Your Name Here (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000). “Whatever It Is, Wherever You Are,” and “Haibun 6” are from A Wave (Viking, 1984); “A Nice Presentation,” “Disagreeable Glimpses,” and “Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland” from As Umbrella Follow Rain. Ashbery made a point about the suitability of prose as a medium for verse when he called his 1972 book of meditative prose Three Poems (Viking, 1972). He was the guest editor of The Best American Poetry 1988. He made “L’Heure Exquise,” the “postcard collage” featured on the cover of this anthology, in 1977.