An Interruption of Boundaries: On Gender and the Prose Poem

Defined by its often-troubling polymorphism, the prose poem is undoubtedly “disturbing and elusive” (Delville 1998), yet in its occupation of both the center and the margins, it offers a unique and provocative engagement with the politics of identity. Nuanced and transformative, the ambiguous spaces of prose poetry have been utilized by a range of poets, including, among others, Nin Andrews, Susan Holbrook, and Hilary Clark, in order to challenge and subvert the boundaries of both genre and gender. As a mode, prose poetry evokes a complex dialectic that is inherently preoccupied with doubling, particularly via parody and mimicry, to create signifying gaps through which the constituting performances of subjectivity might be revealed. Indeed, the tension provoked between prose and poetry is frequently recognized for its ability to disrupt conventional forms and traditions, producing a destabilizing effect which is both cultural and literary, and thus well-suited to capturing the shifting dynamics of the gendered self. Examining how prose poetry interrupts the boundaries of narrative and identity, this chapter explores how the genre troubles the delineation of self and other, and provides a medium through which gender might be understood in terms that are plural, mutable, and resistant.