The Arabic Prose Poem

Examines one of the most controversial poetic forms in Arabic: the Arabic prose poem

When the modernist movement in Arabic poetry was launched in the 1940s, it threatened to blur the distinctions between poetry and everything else. The Arabic prose poem is probably the most subversive and extreme manifestation of this blurring, often described as an oxymoron, a non-genre, an anti-genre, a miracle and even a conspiracy.

This 'new genre' is here explored as a poetic practice and as a critical lens which gave rise to a profound, contentious and continuing debate about the definition of an Arabic poem, its limits, and its relation to its readers. Huda Fakhreddine examines the history of the prose poem, its claims of autonomy and distance from its socio-political context, and the anxiety and scandal it generated.

Key Features
¿ Examines the 'new genre' of the prose poem as a poetic practice and as a critical lens
¿ Adopts a case-study approach to a number of poets, including: Adonis, Muhammad al-Maghut, Salim Barakat, Mahmoud Darwish and Wadi Sa¿adeh
¿ Adopts a comparative approach which operates across time periods and genres, racial identity and cultural traditions

Huda J. Fakhreddine is Associate Professor of Arabic literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Metapoesis in the Arabic Tradition: From Modernists to Muhdathun (2015).