Marianne Chan – The Prose Poem as Shapeshifter & Rebel (January 2024)

The prose poem has been a subversive poetic genre since the 1869 publication of Baudelaire’s Le Spleen de Paris, and it continues in contemporary times to work against reader expectations, shedding light on social norms and tension. Focusing primarily on the work of Claudia Rankine, Russell Edson, Layli Long Soldier, and others, Chan’s lecture explores the prose poem as a liminal, rebel genre and a space of reckoning.