Forthcoming Conference Papers on Prose Poetry

Hello, all. I know some of my readers are fellow prose poetry enthusiasts, so I thought I'd let you know about some forthcoming conference papers I'm giving on the subject.

For the Great Writing Conference at the University of Portsmouth in June, I've organised a panel, "The Prose Poem: Pedagogy & Practice." I'll be talking about the use of prose poetry to transform the personal, particularly in undergraduate creative writing; fellow presenters Andy Brown and Jane Monson will talk about "The Prose Poem as 'Set-Piece'" and "The Object Poem in Prose," respectively.

For the British and Irish Contemporary Poetry Conference at Oxford in September, the topic is "The Line in Contemporary Poetry." My paper, "What Line? The Place of Prose in Contemporary British Poetry," will look at the use of the prose poem in the work of Michael Donaghy, David Harsent, and Peter Redgrove. I'm focusing on these mainstream, male poets to stress that the form is not so marginalised in the UK as one might think.

I'd be glad to hear your thoughts on these topics.