Abstract
This essay reveals the delights of Jeremy Over’s prose poetry, setting his work in the context of recent British prose poetry, while observing his place in the tradition of nonsense literature. In the tradition’s ability to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable, this essay argues that Over goes beyond clever surprises to arouse authentic wonder. Connections are made between Over, the Dadaists, Surrealists, Gertrude Stein and New York poets, such as John Ashbery. Making the case that nonsense literature and prose poetry combined are a path to authenticity and freedom in a resistance to common sense and tragic heroism, the essay demonstrates how Over’s prose poems show reality in different lights and empower marginalized voices.
‘Must a name mean something?’ Alice asked doubtfully.
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Notes
- 1.
A much shorter, earlier version of this article first appeared in Tears in the Fence, 63. Permission granted by the author, also the editor of Tears in the Fence.
- 2.
Michel Delville , The American Prose Poem: Poetic Form and the Boundaries of Genre (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 1998), 11–18.
- 3.
Max Jacob, The Selected Poems of Max Jacob, trans., ed., and intro. William Kulik (Oberlin, OH: Oberlin College Press, 1999), 15.
- 4.
This article is an exploration of Over’s prose poems. I should point out, however, that much of his work takes the form of lineated poems, which I plan to explore in a future article.
- 5.
This quotation is given by Kenneth Koch in an interview with Mark Hillringhouse (Joe Soap’s Canoe 12, 1989).
- 6.
Jeremy Over , A Little Bit of Bread and No Cheese (Manchester: Carcanet, 2001), 9.
- 7.
Email interview between author and Jeremy Over , 4–11 June 2016.
- 8.
“Visual art has been important for some time as a creative prompt; something to write about and something to learn from in terms of how to write. I’m interested in an English strain of visionary artists like Samuel Palmer and Stanley Spencer and have written some collaged poems about their work using words they’ve written in letters and journals. Collage plays a big part in my writing process and the work of Joseph Cornell (his journals as well as his collages and boxed assemblages), Kurt Schwitters (again his writing as well as his visual work and merz environments) and Peter Blake (especially his collecting and the art he’s made as a fan) have been inspirations.
I’m writing a long poem at the moment based on my experiences in the light artist James Turrell’s skyspace environment at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Turrell talks about his art being a ‘non-vicarious’ one focused more on the seeing of the viewer than that of the artist and I’m interested in the verbal equivalent of this. There’s a link here back to what Harwood said about Cornell’s work inviting the viewer in. Both Turrell and Cornell are dealing with box-like environments. With Turrell’s skyspaces you literally enter into them in order to gaze out at the sky; with Cornell’s you are held at a distance by the glass but peer inside to share his reverie. There are often skies (night and day) in Cornell’s boxes too ironically. People often talk about prose poems being kinds of boxes of course but sonnets and haiku are also little containers. Perhaps prose poems are actually quite un-box-like in fact in their uncontained lack of line endings?
I’ve been a practising Buddhist (practising in the zen sense of life being ‘one continuous mistake’) for some years and this also feeds into my writing in some ways I think. There is a lot of ‘I,’ ‘me’ and ‘my’ in the above and viewed from the Buddhist perspective of anatta (not self) this is deluded and likely to lead to a lot of suffering. So ‘I’ am interested in ways of writing (including collage and the use of chance or its OuLiPian alternatives) that play around with, and loosen, the sense of any permanent, stable ‘self’. I’m not sure where prose poetry fits in here. Luke Kennard sees its defining attribute as self-consciousness but perhaps it’s a self-consciousness that is busy sawing away at the branch of the self on which it is sitting. Or something.” (From an email interview I conducted with Jeremy Over , 4–11 June, 2016.)
- 9.
Over, A Little Bit of Bread, 13.
- 10.
Ibid.
- 11.
Ibid.
- 12.
Jeremy Over , Deceiving Wild Creatures (Manchester: Carcanet, 2009), 73.
- 13.
Over, Deceiving Wild Creatures, 73.
- 14.
Over, A Little Bit of Bread, 41.
- 15.
Ibid., 44.
- 16.
Ibid., 53.
- 17.
In an email from Jeremy Over (29 June 2015).
- 18.
G.K. Chesterton, Stories, Essays and Poems (London: J. M. Dent, 1935), 124.
- 19.
Chesterton, Stories, Essays, Poems, 124.
- 20.
See Jean-Jacques Lecercle, Philosophy of Nonsense : The Intuitions of Victorian Nonsense Literature (New York: Routledge, 1994), 108.
- 21.
Over, Deceiving Wild Creatures, 11.
- 22.
Ibid., 33.
- 23.
See Over, “Fishing for the Moon: Some Recent Prose Poetry in the UK,” Hard Times: Contemporary British Poetry Issue 80 (2006): 39–44.
- 24.
These poets employ the prose poem alongside many different poetic forms. See, for example, Emily Berry, Dear Boy (London: Faber & Faber, 2013); Luke Kennard , The Harbour Beyond the Movie (Cromer, Norfolk: Salt, 2010); and Hilda Sheehan, The Night My Sister Went to Hollywood (Sittingbourne, Kent: Cultured Llama, 2013).
Works Cited
Auden, W. H. Quoted by Kenneth Koch, in Joe Soap’s Canoe 12 (1989). http://martinstannard.com/jsc/jsc12compressed.pdf. Accessed 10 June 2017.
Chesterton, G. K. Stories, Essays and Poems. London: J. M. Dent, 1935.
Delville, Michel. The American Prose Poem: Poetic Form and the Boundaries of Genre. Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 1998.
Jacob, Max. The Selected Poems of Max Jacob. Translated and edited by William Kulik. Oberlin: Oberlin College Press, 1999.
Lecercle, Jean-Jacques. Philosophy of Nonsense: The Intuitions of Victorian Nonsense Literature. New York: Routledge, 1994.
Over, Jeremy. A Little Bit of Bread and No Cheese. Manchester: Carcanet, 2001.
———. “Fishing for the Moon: Some Recent Prose Poetry in the UK.” Hard Times: Contemporary British Poetry Issue 80 (2006): 39–44.
———. Deceiving Wild Creatures. Manchester: Carcanet, 2009.
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Seed, I. (2018). Nonsense and Wonder: An Exploration of the Prose Poems of Jeremy Over. In: Monson, J. (eds) British Prose Poetry. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77863-1_16
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