Poetry and the Essay

Topics and questions we would like to see addressed include:

• Boundaries of form – what is an essay, what is a poem, what happens when the two meet?

• Lyric theory and the essay: what does it mean to read the essay as lyric? Can lyric poetry approach the form of the essay?

• Different types of essay poems: defining the sub-genres.

• Forms used – prose poetry, found forms, tercets, couplets, quatrains; the place of rhyme and/or metre.

• Language: polyvocality and code-switching, formal/informal language, voice.

• Audience, in and out of the poem; the addressee and the reader.

• Arguments and answers, questions and uncertainty. Logical and other modes of thinking, such as association, metaphor, lateral, subjective and experiential thinking.

• The tensions arising from melding the forms – prose versus poetry, fact versus imagination, information versus art.

• The lyric essay/essay poem as a literary tradition, from Horace to Pope to Shelley.