Prose poetry is a relatively new poetic form, unlike forms we’ve already studied, like the sonnet or the ballad.   A prose poem is a poem written in prose (ordinary written language) rather than verse.  How does this work?

Typical features of a prose poem:

• it works with sentences rather than lines
• it can look like a paragraph or fragmented short story but acts like a poem
• it still uses similes, metaphors, figurative language
• it still relies on connotative meanings of words
• it does away with the line as the unit of composition
• it can be modeled on other kinds of writing, for example a dialogue, a shopping list, a memo, a newspaper article

Also, we may also want to think about a prose poem as:

• a poetic form that blurs boundaries
• a poetic form that is a hybrid form
• a poetic form that some consider subversive, less privileged: why?
• a poetic form that has developed fairly recently and become more popular in the 21st century

Definition adapted from Lehman, David. Best American Prose Poems. NY: Scribner, 2003.