Little Mr. Prose Poem: Selected Poems of Russell Edson

by Russell Edson, Craig Morgan Teicher (Editor), Charles Simic (Foreword)

A baby that keeps losing its brain, a cow in a wedding gown, a woman whose chest is a radio — bizarre and whimsical figures populate this collection of dreamlike prose poems from Russell Edson (1935-2014), with a Foreword by Pulitzer Prize winner Charles Simic.

A seminal voice in American prose poetry from the sixties onward, Edson’s whole career is surveyed in a single volume edited for our times, presenting a new and contemporary view of a poet of startling imagination and strangeness. Craig Morgan Teicher calls us to witness Edson’s obsessions with the curious, the absurd, and the peculiar, and the ways in which they can haunt our daily lives. The prose poems in this collection mold our everyday into something extraordinary and unsettling. 

Edson’s poems are surreal fables in which his characters experience all that life throws at them— marriage, parenthood, technological advances, aging, dying, the afterlife— through irreverent dialogue and vivid imagery in turns both humorous and grotesque. Russell Edson is a vital and ever-contemporary poet with a unique moral and comedic vision, whose literary career quietly yet definitively shaped the prose poetry subgenre as we know it now.  

Genres: Poetry

157 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 25, 2022

About the author

Russell Edson (December 12, 1928 – April 29, 2014) was an American poet, novelist, writer, and illustrator. He was the son of the cartoonist-screenwriter Gus Edson.

He studied art early in life and attended the Art Students League as a teenager. He began publishing poetry in the 1960s. His honors as a poet include a Guggenheim fellowship, a Whiting Award, and several fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Russell Edson was born in Connecticut in 1935 and lived there with his wife Frances. Edson, who jokingly has called himself "Little Mr. Prose Poem," is inarguably the foremost writer of prose poetry in America, having written exclusively in that form before it became fashionable. In a forthcoming study of the American prose poem, Michel Delville suggests that one of Edson's typical "recipes" for his prose poems involves a modern everyman who suddenly tumbles into an alternative reality in which he loses control over himself, sometimes to the point of being irremediably absorbed--both figuratively and literally--by his immediate and, most often, domestic everyday environment. . . . Constantly fusing and confusing the banal and the bizarre, Edson delights in having a seemingly innocuous situation undergo the most unlikely and uncanny metamorphoses. . . .

Reclusive by nature, Edson has still managed to publish eleven books of prose poems and one novel, The Song of Percival Peacock (available from Coffee House Press).

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

Russell Edson not only wrote prose poems but also was a trained artist. The above is one of Russell's illustrations.

Little Mr. Prose Poem - Selected Poems of Russell Edson is a treasure for fans of the author and also those who might be new to his work, an anthology of over one hundred Russell Edson prose poems collected from ten books published in the years from 1964 to 2009.

Also included is a Forward written by Charles Simic who observes that, when it comes to reading Russell Edson, we realize that despite all the joking, these prose poems are not the scribblings of a village idiot, but of a comic genius and a serious thinker.

Additionally, there's an eight-page Afterwards written by Craig Moran Teicher who also serves as the book's editor. Mr Teicher offers a number of insights into the philosophy and psychology undergirding Edson's distinctive creations.

A general understanding certainly can serve as an added dimension when reading these Edson upside down prose potato poems; however, I find my deepest satisfaction in reading a piece over and over until the images root themselves in my imagination and I can see and feel what's happening clearly. You'll have to discover what works for you. Anyway, here's a sampling of several from this collection along with my own modest ramblings -

I wonder what Russell Edson saw when he looked in the mirror each morning. Perhaps a field of long cracked grass that had to be shaven off or hair in the form of a sleeping mole that needed a trim or two eyes that could see in reverse, could see as as far as the mica glitter of stars . . .

ANTIMATTER
On the other side of a mirror there's an inverse world, where the insane go sane; where bones climb out of the earth and recede to the first slime of love.

And in the evening the sun is just rising.

Lovers cry because they are a day younger, and soon childhood robs them of their pleasure.

In such a world there is much sadness which, of course, is joy . . .

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With Russell Edson, we can enter the land of unspeakable things - and those unspeakable things and objects are given a voice -

WITH SINCEREST REGRETS
Like a monstrous snail, a toilet slides into a living room on a track of wet, demanding to be loved.
It is impossible, and we tender our sincerest regrets. In the book of the heart there is no mention made of plumbing.
And though we have spent our intimacy many times with you, you belong to an unfortunate reference, which we would rather not embrace . . .
The toilet slides away . . .

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Death where is thy sting! In the universe of Russell Edson, the reality of death can be a soft tomato resting on the surface of the moon. Sometimes the tomato will turn white, sometimes the tomato will crumble and sometimes the tomato will be eaten by the little moon mice that have been living, invisible to human eyes, on the surface for thousands of years. And sometimes the mice and tomato roll in a crater accidentally on purpose.

ACCIDENTS
A man had accidentally gone to bed. When he noticed it he was terribly embarrassed, and said, Of course I'll marry you, please don't cry. And then he accidentally fell asleep.
Some hours later he found himself eating breakfast. And again embarrassed said, Of course I'll pay all damages . . .

And then one day found himself on a psychiatrist's couch. And after promising the couch a nuptial alliance, said, Doctor, my life just seems one long accident, is there anything I can take for it?
Not to worry, smiled the psychiatrist, Sooner or later there's the fatal accident, which often lead to a total remission . . .

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Russell Edson lived the life of a hermit on Weed Ave in Stamford, Connecticut. Russell lived with his wife, Francis, who went off to teach children at school every day. Other than Francis, I wonder how many conversations with other women Russell had.

THE CONVERSATION
There was a woman whose face was a cow's milk bag, a pink pouch with four dugs pointing out of it . . .
A man with a little three-legged milking stool comes. She stoops and he begins to milk her face . . .

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This book is the one to make part of your library. A special thanks to BOA Editions for this handsome Russell Edson collection.

[Honi SK · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best things I have ever seen with my eyes. I’m so glad this exists. I want it injected into my veins

[Jack Michalski]

Loved this — playful, tragic, absurdist prose poems defined by misdirection and miscommunication.

Some of them seem to have a subtle lesson or truth hiding behind them; for others, the thing hiding seems to be an emphatic nothing

[Andy McCarthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

So enjoyable and so accessible.

[Bucky Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

He is a sick freak and I love him.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not for everybody. But it's definitely for me. Failed communication, absurdity, and despair that is laugh-out-loud funny. Do you know how rare it is for me to laugh while reading a book? Very rare.

[Robert Morgan Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Readers and writers of micro and flash fiction will find this collection indispensable, amusing and inspiring.

[Katrin Josephine Van de Velde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lekker absurd. Ontdekt via Bart Moeyaert ('Een ander leven').