Prose poetry
Prose poetry is a literary form that uses poetic devices such as imagery, rhythm, and figurative language without arranging text in verse lines.
Prose: Language arranged in sentences and paragraphs rather than metrical or lineated verse. Prose poetry adopts prose’s continuous layout while transforming its effects.
Aloysius Bertrand: A French Romantic writer whose posthumously published Gaspard de la nuit contains influential prose poems. His book helped establish the prose poem as a deliberate literary form.
Lyrical prose: Prose distinguished by musical language, heightened imagery, and an expressive or reflective voice. It shares prose poetry’s lyric resources, though it need not claim poetic form.
Verse: Writing arranged in lines, often shaped by rhythm, meter, or other sound patterns. Prose poetry uses paragraph-like blocks rather than verse lineation.
Poetry: Literary language shaped by sound, rhythm, imagery, or other concentrated expressive techniques. Prose poetry retains poetic qualities without verse lineation.
Gaspard de la nuit: Aloysius Bertrand’s 1842 collection of prose poems inspired by medieval and Renaissance art. Its compact, lyrical pieces became a landmark model for the form.
Flash fiction: A very short work of fiction that compresses narrative into a small number of words. Its brevity can resemble prose poetry, but narrative development is usually central.
Poetic prose: Prose with poetic qualities that is not necessarily presented or understood as poetry. The boundary is disputed: poetic prose may use similar techniques without adopting the prose poem’s form.
Free verse: Poetry without a regular metrical pattern, often organized through line breaks and cadence. Both reject fixed meter, but free verse remains arranged in poetic lines.
Charles Baudelaire: A French poet whose work, including Le Spleen de Paris, shaped modern literature. His prose poems made urban experience and modern life central to the form.