English 716-001
Poetic Craft and Theory: The Prose Poem
Instr: Kilwein-Guevara, Maurice
Office: CRT 512; 229-4520
e-mail: maurice@uwm.edu
Office hours: TBA
Course Information: MW; 3:30-4:45pm; CRT 286
Course Description
"We Were So Poor" We were so poor I had to take the place of the bait in the mousetrap. All alone in the cellar, I could hear them pacing upstairs, tossing and turning in their beds. "These are dark and evil days," the mouse told me as he nibbled my ear. My mother wore a cat-fur collar which she stroked until its sparks lit up the cellar. --Charles Simic
This course is a mix of literature, criticism, and literary writing; the focus will be on the history of the prose poem, a hybrid form that dates at least as far back as Aloysious Bertrand's Gaspard de la Nuit (1842). We'll also look at many other practitioners, including Gertrude Stein, Remedios Varo, Russell Edson, Charles Simic, Karen Volkman, among many others. Assigned texts will include, among others, Models of the Universe: An Anthology of the Prose Poem, No Boundaries: Prose Poems by 24 American Poets, and The American Prose Poem: Poetic Form and the Boudaries of Genre. You will write critical responses to the assigned work and will also write your own prose poems.
