The borderlines of poetry

Where does poetry end and prose begin? What is a prose poem? What aesthetic, ideological and marketing purposes are fulfilled when we call things by certain names? Is the very act of calling a piece of prose a 'poem' enough to make a prose poem or have prose poets in fact developed certain compositional strategies meant to erase accepted distinctions between literary genres and expand the range of formal possibilities of poetry? If that is the case, are we speaking of contemporary poetry as a seamless continuum liable to be transgressed by the inherently subversive potential of prose poetry? This paper addresses some of the above questions with reference to the state and status of the prose poem in Australia. It argues that the prose poem questions boundaries between creative and critical material whilst negotiating between notions of a public language of prose and a marginal language of poetry. It also suggests that prose poetry enacts particularly complex modes of engagement between subjectivity and the world.