No Boundaries: Prose Poems by 24 American Poets

by Ray Gonzalez

Overview

As more poets write prose poems, one of the most common reasons they give for turning to them is that their fluent composition offers a “freedom of expression” lined poetry often restricts. To many, this sounds like a contradiction stemming from the eternal belief that any kind of good poetry has no boundaries. Yet those that write prose poems insist the act of placing their poems into sentences and paragraphs gives them a fresh approach to content and form.

From the introduction by Ray Gonzalez

An appreciative, enlightening survey of an increasingly vital poetic approach, No Boundaries is the first collection of contemporary prose poetry to present substantial selections (10 poems each) from the works of well-known luminaries alongside poems by upcoming firebrands. By offering ten poems by each poet, this collection allows the reader to explore the work of each contributor in depth. Robert Bly, Russell Edson, Campbell McGrath, and other established poets light the torches held by newcomers Mary Koncel, Gary Young, Linda Dyer, etc. Editor Ray Gonzalez chose to showcase these distinctive writers whose work embodies the diversity of styles and techniques representing the art of the prose poem today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781932195019
Publisher:	Tupelo Press
Publication date:	04/01/2003
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x (h) x (d)

About the Author

Ray Gonzalez has been poetry editor of The Bloomsbury Review for more than two decades, and has won numerous awards for his prolific literary output. In 2002, he was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his poetry collection, The Hawk Temple at Tierre Grande. He has won many awards for his anthologies and, to date, has compiled a dozen literature collections. He teaches at the University of Minnesota.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	xiii
3
	Red Blossoms	4
	The Artichoke	5
	The Ultimate Orgasm	6
	The Obsession	7
	The Life of Borges	8
	An Alternative to Sex	9
	The Right Time	10
	The Message	11
	Like an Angel	12
	Amnesia	13
14
	Warning to the Reader	15
	An Oyster Shell	16
	The Crow's Head	17
	A Hollow Tree	18
	The Black Crab-Demon	19
	An Octopus	20
	Two Sounds When We Sit By the Ocean	21
	Calm Day at Drake's Bay	22
	A Piece of Lichen	23
	The Orchard Keeper	24
25
	History of Clouds	26
	Parable of the Astral Wheel	27
	Parable of the Traveler From Qatar	28
	Hawaiian Shirt	29
	Unforgiven	30
	Crimes Against the Future	31
	To Propagate a Change in Configuration or Bill Gates & The Blue Cow	32
	Involving the Use of the Word America	33
	Three Presidents	34
	Parable of the White House Replica	35
36
	"In this wind"	37
	"No one promised..."	38
	"The man has lost his way..."	39
	"A small stranger..."	40
	"El Paso"	41
	"At junctures we renamed..."	42
	"Would I dive again..."	43
	"Pieces that jammed..."	44
	"The boy had told a rhyme..."	45
	"A truck pulled up..."	46
47
	An American	48
	Blues	49
	The Sorry Part	51
	The Sixties: Two Scenes	53
	In History	54
	The Wheel of Appetite	55
	The Hawk. The Road. The Sunlight After Clouds	57
	Brutal Squares	59
	Memory	60
	The Bait	62
64
	Hereditary Guess	65
	Votive	66
	Farm Mutilations	67
	The Lost Finger	68
	First Death in Oklahoma	69
	Wellspring	70
	The Life of the Body	71
	Level and Rise	73
	The Seven Anxieties of Sleep	74
	The Harpist, Between the Beginning and End	75
76
	A Man Who Makes Tears	77
	The Dark Side of the Moon	78
	The Lover	79
	Conjugal	80
	The Glandular Condition	81
	The Marionettes of Distant Masters	82
	The Wheel	83
	The Family Monkey	84
	Twins	85
	Round	86
87
	Difficulty at the Beginning	88
	Saints	89
	Bzzzzzzz	90
	The Cure	91
	A Lecture on Jealousy	92
	The Holy Ghost	93
	War Criminal	94
	The Unforeseen	95
	Bitter Angel	96
	Slow Boat	97
98
	A Painting Is Never in Love	99
	Joan Miro Threw a Stone at God	100
	He Calls His Dog Rimbaud	101
	Fucking Aztecs, Palomas, Mexico	102
	The Black Torso of the Pharaoh	103
	Understanding	104
	As If Talking	105
	The Bat	106
	The Blessing	107
	Traditional	108
109
	Reader of This Page	110
	Memorial Day	111
	Buho, Buho	112
	New Year's Day	113
	The Exegesis	114
	After Midnight at the Salvage Yard	115
	After Chaos Theory	116
	First Apartment	117
	Self-Portrait	118
	River Spirits	119
120
	Giraffe on Fire	121
	At the Exodus Gym/ Valencia Street	122
	"Who are you?"	123
	"Hold up the right corner..."	124
	La Llorona Power-Woman Confidential	125
	I, Citlalli "La Loca" Cienfuegos: Sutra on the Notebook	128
	"The little boy breathes..."	129
	Exiles	130
	"The gold triangle..."	131
	Taking a Bath in Aztlan	132
133
	The Name	134
	Laundromat	135
	Somersault	136
	The Bear's Money	137
	Insects	138
	War Surplus	139
	The Ukrainian Easter Egg	140
	Violence on Television	141
	Stone Arch, National Rock Formation	142
	The Book	143
144
	Enigma of the Stigma, or Vice Versa	145
	The Doll	146
	Darwin	147
	The New Country	148
	Guy Talk	149
	Provincetown	150
	Neanderthal	151
	Home	152
	Nettles	153
	Return	154
155
	The Sentence	156
	A Proclitic Stitch in the Vertical Pull of Roberto Juarroz	158
	To Live in Pronouns: The Birth of Pedro Salinas	160
	The Death of Attila Jozsef	161
	Lemon Seeds of Yannis Ritsos	162
	Lucien Blaga Was Not a Fish	164
	Blas de Otero and the Pantry of Blood	165
	Belgisch Congo, Congo Belge	166
	Cavafy's Craving	168
	Brahms and the Taxidermies of Sleep	169
170
	Angel Eating Snow	171
	Watching Her Soul from Below	173
	Narcissus's Suitcase	174
	Black Pearl	175
	Jar of Bees	176
	Giving Away Bones	177
	Human with Little Sun in Her Hands	178
	Anatomy Woman Escapes	179
	The Chalk Bride	180
	All of Its Words, Both Winged and Quilled	181
182
	The Lake Shore Limited	183
	Come Back Elvis, Come Back to Holyoke	184
	The Neighborhood Man	185
	Bump	186
	On Weeping Icons	187
	Love Poem	188
	The Year of the Man	189
	Meditation on a Bird Sitting on a Man's Head	190
	When the Babies Are Missing Again	191
	The Second Song of Insomnia	192
193
	The Words	194
	The 8th, 9th, and 10th Wonders of the World	195
	My Father's Hobby	197
	The Girl Who Became My Grandmother	198
	Smoking Cigars	199
	Moon & Flower	200
	Angel Incident	202
	Goodbye to the Twentieth Century	203
	The Face	204
	The People We Never Heard Of	205
206
	The Prose Poem	207
	The Gulf	209
	Mountainair, New Mexico	210
	Four Clouds Like the Irish in Memory	211
	A Dove	212
	El Balserito	213
	Sylvia Plath	214
	Manitoba	215
	Plums	216
	The Wreck	218
219
	Souvenir From Anywhere	220
	Once Ever After	221
	The Lunar Lutheran	222
	Free Radicals	223
	Dim Lady	224
	Naked Statues	225
	The Anthropic Principle	226
	Denigration	227
	Coals to Newcastle, Panama Hats from Ecuador	228
	Black Nikes	229
230
	I Was Thinking of Poems	231
	The Mind of Squash	232
	Living Alone Inside One's Own Body	233
	Bright Needle Poked Through Dark Cloth	234
	Paris	235
	Mint Snowball II	236
	His Life	237
	Rain Falling into the River That Moment as They Merge	238
	Working for Tom	239
	Island	240
241
	"I was stolen by the gypsies"	242
	Terra Incognita	243
	Old Postcard of 42nd Street at Night	244
	"Are Russian cannibals worse than the English?"	245
	"Time--the lizard in the sunlight."	246
	"My guardian angel is afraid of the dark."	247
	The Magic Study of Happiness	248
	"Lover of endless disappointments..."	249
	The Old Man Told Me	250
	Our Angelic Ancestor	251
252
	"And when the nights"	253
	"I never wish..."	254
	"I watching for it..."	255
	"If it be event"	256
	"There comes a time..."	257
	"Although the paths lead..."	258
	"What we know..."	259
	"Shrewd star"	260
	"I have a friend."	261
	"I won't go in today."	262
263
	Wednesday Morning Pray Time	264
	Dis/coeurs on the Method	265
	Housewife's Lament	266
	A Very Big Wind	267
	Adam Au Verso	268
	Representation	269
	Gustatory/ Hortatory	270
	Sun Dial	271
	Self Extension	272
	Accord	273
274
	"Crushed by love..."	275
	"My mother..."	276
	"Kitty smiled"	277
	"When the boy died"	278
	"Fishing the Powder River..."	279
	"Midnight, Christmas"	280
	"My son was possessed..."	281
	"When I was a young man..."	282
	"I was home..."	283
	"I am not an incidental thought..."	284
	Acknowledgments	286