The Cornell Chronicle has a write-up on Recite and Refuse: Contemporary Chinese Prose Poetry, by Cornell’s own Nick Admussen. “Nick Admussen began his study of Chinese prose poetry eight years ago with the expectation that the genre would be similar to its counterpart in Western literature,” the Chronicle writes:

nonconformist poems that reject the structures of most poetry. But … the Chinese poems shared a method in which they imitated some type of prose – whether it was an advertisement, a travelogue or political speech – and then altered it in some way…

“What surprised me the most when I started the process is I had read a lot of American and a lot of French prose poetry,” Admussen said. “I had read scholars from other languages, especially from France, who would argue that with prose poetry, it’s this rebelliousness – breaking the rules of poetry and breaking the lines. But a lot of Chinese prose poetry tends toward the obedient.”

Recite and Refuse is now out from University of Hawai’i Press. Click on the image above for the full write-up.