The House of Your Dream: An International Collection of Prose PoetryEdited by Robert Alexander
and Dennis Maloney
The Marie Alexander Poetry Series
White Pine Press
(2008)
White Pine Press has published some of the best 20th-century poets--both foreign and domestic--for nearly 40 years. Tomas Tranströmer, Antonio Machado, Pablo Neruda, James Wright, Miguel Hernandez--these are only the tip of the tip of the White Pine iceberg. This is no small feat considering that Maloney and White Pine, much like Hamill (now Wiegers) and Copper Canyon, have managed to survive from revenues generated by hawking their poetry-only wares.
As its title suggests, this is a collection of that most enigmatic of poetic traditions, the prose poem. This collection represents Maloney's history as both a publisher and editor, seeing as its roster of prose poets consists only of those whose poems have appeared in White Pine titles. It's one thing to arrange and edit a good anthology, and quite another when that anthology must rely upon the publishing history of a single editor for its contents. And take it from us, this is an excellent anthology. Here are a few of this collection's 90 featured writers: Paul Celan, René Char, Russell Edson, Jim Harrison, David Ignatow, Max Jacob, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Larry Levis, Morton Marcus, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, Francis Ponge, Yannis Ritsos, Vern Rutsala, Charles Simic, Eva Ström, Tomas Tranströmer, James Wright, Gary Young.
Vern Rutsala
THE HOUSE OF YOUR DREAM
I enter your house with stealth, making sure I'm dressed properly--checking buttons, the shine on my shoes--trying to look normal because you say your dreams are so ordinary and I don't want to stand out. You say you spend your dreams packing and shopping, engaging in small talk. But inside your dream I notice a strange light, the light that colored your childhood, and your suitcases are covered with exotic stickers. The very streets you windowshop along are unlike any streets I remember--each store a museum of the mysterious, each window faceted like a diamond. I follow a few paces behind you as you buy tea and apples--the tea seems alive with the sounds of India and each apple has a window where families look out and wave. Each object you meet glows with that old light, even the sidewalk looks like a rainbow--because it is your dream and I am a stranger here.
At 181 pages, this anthology is long enough to be substantial and diverse, as well as representative of the prose poem tradition, yet short enough to be portable, readable, and enjoyable. The anthology is a tricky beast, and Alexander and Maloney appear to have tamed it. Ask yourself, when was the last time you picked up the Norton Anthology of Whatever? The House of Your Dream succeeds in both form and substance. If you're searching to create a good section of prose poetry in your home library, then we recommend the combination of The House of Your Dream and Models of the Universe (Oberlin College Press, 1995). Models of the Universe is essential reading; and its table of contents is arranged by the year of the author's birth, which allows the reader to experience the history and evolution of the prose poem with the turning of each page. Both of these titles are in print and should be ordered from your local independent bookseller.*
