The prose poem and the Arabic literary tradition

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe prose poem, this hybrid, suspect, and contradictory proposition, gives rise to questions that call for more engaged scrutiny of every other established poetic form in Arabic, and especially the qaṣīda and the Arabic Free Verse poem. The prose poem does not only pose the question “what is poetry?,” but also, more subversively, urges us to ask: “what can be poetry in Arabic?” This is a question not so much concerned with defining as much as expanding and recharting. In a tradition that has long accepted very clear-cut distinctions between poetry and prose, such a prospect is both exciting and unsettling.