AustLit

'A book that has been long awaited, Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry, provides an overview of how prose poetry has come into the Australian poetic landscape while presenting a variety of prose poems written by Australian poets who are breaking away from conservative, traditional poetic forms. These poets stand next to one another here—as a sort of resistance—unified by a shared belief that prose can and should be an acceptable entry for poetics. The featured poems are varied in content while also providing examples of how a prose poem might approach taking up space on the page. Each block of text uncovers a unique truth: "Until now, and despite the excellence of prose poetry in Australia, there has never been such an anthology, although poets since 2002 … have called for one to be published, … the result of relative neglect of prose poetry by critics and editors in Australia" (1). The anthology opens with a fourteen-page essay of exposition from the editors that seeks to explain the why of the book and bring readers to a level ground of understanding before experiencing the delight to come.' (Introduction)