365 Prose Poems

Published April 30, 2022

Lovely CC Readers,

I set out to read one prose poem per day last year, a journey that wandered into 2022 and onto this list. All of the poems with an asterisk link to their online home. The bulk of these can be found at the top or bottom of the list, with a smattering in the middle. Some were the result of searching through other journals, while the rest were recommended by folks in the writing community on Twitter. Please note that a few of the poems link to a page with more than one poem by the same poet, so you may have to scroll down. The rest of the titles listed are from books (mainly what was available at the local library) which link to more information on the collection in which they were found. I tend to skip around when reading books of poetry, so poems on the list may not always appear in the same order as they do in the source. I hope this list is helpful to anyone looking for prose poem examples!

Udderly yours,

SJ (Editor-in-Beef)

Blueberry Blue (by Meg Pokrass)*
Resolve (by Claire Taylor)*
On My Father’s Gun Safe (by Daphne Daugherty)*
A Story About the Body (by Robert Hassocks)*
Thursday Afternoon: Life is Sweet (by Holly Iglesias)*
birthday wells (by Monique Quintana)*
on hesitation (by Taylor Byas)*
when it snows (by Vic Nogay)*
Girl (by Jamaica Kincaid)*
The One About the Robbers (by Zachary Schomburg)
The Animal Spell (by Zachary Schomburg)
7 December (by Kate Greenstreet)
The Babies (by Sabrina Orah Mark)
Cakewalk (by Jericho Brown)*
Forecast (by Charles Rafferty)*
Ladders (by Richard Garcia)*
The Colonel (by Carolyn Forché)*
Don’t Bother the Earth Spirit (by Joy Harjo)*
Let Us Consider (by Russell Edson)*
[I feel too porous to read, and too empty to write] (by Kelly Schirmann)*
A Thursday (by Geraldine Clarkson)*
look the other way (by Kyla Houbolt)*
I Own a House (by Mary Oliver)
April Snow (by Matthew Zapruder)*
When I Think of the Immortal Jellyfish (by Christen Noel Kauffman)*
28,065 Nights (by Katie Manning)*
Permanence (by Denise Duhamel)*
Even the Gods (by Nicole Sealey)*
Corruption (by Srikanth Reddy)*
from Citizen, I (by Claudia Rankine)*
Afterlife (by Darien Hsu Gee)*
Soup for an Oligarch (by Maurice Kilwein Guevara)*
The Woman Who Falls From the Sky (by Zachary Schomburg)
Testy Pony (by Zachary Schomburg)
What Would Kill Me (by Zachary Schomburg)
(after contemplating wintering in water) (by Brigitte Byrd)*
This Year (by Brooke Middlebrook)*
Where Did You Go? (by Francine Witte)*
Winter In June (by Lorette C. Luzajic)*
In praise of chickens (by Loisa Fenichell)*
Hospital Poem (by Leigh Chadwick)*
It was 1687 when a falling apple fell in natural motion (by Tanya Castro)*
How to Make Boxed Shells: 8 Easy Steps (by Brenda Nicholas)*
We live now (by Francine Witte)*
The Lake Will Provide (by James R. Gapinski)*
Your Pants Look Disappointed (by Kevin Griffith)
National Poetry Month (by Kevin Griffith)
In the Town of the Fallen Angel (by Kevin Griffith)
Each Time (by Bob Heman)*
disaster movie (by Lee Patterson)*
Heads or Tails (by Gary Duncan)*
Zombie Noir (by Kevin Griffith)
When You Return From the Dead (by Kevin Griffith)
Spinning (by Kevin Griffith)
Rocket Surgery (by Tom Fugalli)*
I Imagine Myself in Australia (by Sara Backer)*
Miniature Sunflowers (by Kevin Griffith)
[the flight is the show] (by Darren C. Demaree)*
Imagine the Chair (by Kit Kennedy)*
Hidden Valley (by Ricky Garni)*
Membership (by Kevin Griffith)
Genesis: The Untold Story (by Kevin Griffith)
Ah, the Good Old Days (by Kevin Griffith)
Truth is (by Karen Neuberg)*
Little Joe Gould #5 (by Devon Balwit)*
Megalomania (by Lee Kaloidis)*
If the Fluttering of Butterfly Wings (by Cathy Ulrich)*
Slow Waves and Delta Waves (by Merridawn Duckler)*
Paved with Good Intentions (by Sophie van Llewyn)*
Apple (by Chance Dibben)*
What to Write Home About (by Jenni Garber)*
The Wednesday Kind of Feeling (by Kevin Griffith)
Slow Children (by Kevin Griffith)
Marriage (by Kevin Griffith)
Coffee (by Kevin Griffith)
I’ll Trade You Maude for Lou (by Jaclyn Adomeit)*
The Metamorphosis (by Kevin Griffith)
The Other Ark (by Kevin Griffith)
Furnace (by Kevin Griffith)
How to Love a Monster with Average-Sized Hands (by Jules Archer)*
The Village of Bitterness (by Kevin Griffith)
Indigo Froth (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
When the War Formed (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
Balcony (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
The Parish (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
Archaic Torso Again (by Kevin Griffith)
I Will Rebuild Paris for You (by Kevin Griffith)
My Descent (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
The One with the Darkest Hair (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
I Wish I Were Mexico (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Faithful (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Holy War (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Ancient Pez Cat, c. 2003 C.E. (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Little Mystery (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
The Passing House (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Boywatching with Lydia (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
My Own Worst Enemy (by Kevin Griffith)
Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are (by Kevin Griffith)
Don’t Hesitate (by Mary Oliver)
March (by Louis Jenkins)*
Tumbling Tumbleweeds (by Louis Jenkins)
Thunderstorm Warning (by Louis Jenkins)
The Bear’s Money (by Louis Jenkins)
On the Author (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Pink Most Desert Body (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Tonight I Will Execute All the Falcons of the Old Regime (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Journey (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
From Ancient Legends and Infidelities, Ch. 3, “Perverse Muses” (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Bedtime Story (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Denmark, Kangaroo, Orange (by Kevin Griffith)
Surprise Party (by Kevin Griffith)
December 28 as Part of the Body (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Red Car I (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Red Car III (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Red Car IV (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Red Car V (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Red Car VI (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
A View of Popocatepetl (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
One Day at a Florida Key (by Robert Bly)
The Thirteenth Woman (by Lydia Davis)
The Taxi (by Russell Edson)
Album (by Ron Padgett)
Now Are the Rough Things Smooth (by Mary Oliver)
Clam (by Mary Oliver)
At Blackwater Pond (by Mary Oliver)
Black Snake (by Mary Oliver)
The Word (by Mary Oliver)
At Twilight an Angel (by Mary Oliver)
Everything’s a Fake (by Fanny Howe)
Rapture (by James Tate)
Power (by Andrei Codrescu)
On Hedonism (by Anne Carson)
On Shelter (by Anne Carson)
Galaxy Coffee Shop (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Ode (by Lisa Jarnot)
Sure (by Bob Heman)
Carolina (by Bob Heman)
Symphony (by Bob Heman)
Lengths (by Bob Heman)
Layers (by Bob Heman)
Night (by Bob Heman)
[fable] (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
[ligament] (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
[visitation rights] (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
River (by Bob Heman)
Jet (by Bob Heman)
Hat (by Bob Heman)
I sat at my desk and contemplated all that I had accomplished (by James Tate)
The Shepherd (by James Tate)
The Sky is Falling Like Bunnies (by James Tate)
Debbie and the Lumberjack (by James Tate)
Gas (by Bob Heman)
Menu (by Bob Heman)
Corner (by Bob Heman)
Clouds (by Bob Heman)
A Shift in the Attic (by James Tate)
Edge (by Bob Heman)
Eternity (by James Tate)
Double-Trouble (by James Tate)
Roscoe’s Farewell (by James Tate)
Out of Breath (by James Tate)
The Argonaut (by James Tate)
The Devil (by James Tate)
The Final Vacation (by James Tate)
Waiting for the Signal Man (by Russell Edson)
The Fetcher of Wood (by Russell Edson)
A Stone is Nobody’s (by Russell Edson)
The Fall (by Russell Edson)
The Epic (by Russell Edson)
Corpuscle (by Bob Heman)
Inventory (by Bob Heman)
Times (by Bob Heman)
Stretch (by Bob Heman)
Hunger (by Bob Heman)
Cell (by Bob Heman)
Chute (by Bob Heman)
Forest (by Bob Heman)
Lessons (by Bob Heman)
Ocean (by Bob Heman)
Rise (by Bob Heman)
Stuffing (by Bob Heman)
The Floor (by Russell Edson)
Movements (by Russell Edson)
Oh My God, I’ll Never Get Home (by Russell Edson)
Vomit (by Russell Edson)
When Science is in the Country (by Russell Edson)
The Description (by Russell Edson)
Antimatter (by Russell Edson)
Counting Sheep (by Russell Edson)
The Gentleman in the Meadow (by Russell Edson)
The Marionettes of Distant Masters (by Russell Edson)
The Old Woman’s Breakfast (by Russell Edson)
The Pilot (by Russell Edson)
Grass (by Russell Edson)
The Canoeing (by Russell Edson)
The Overlap of Worlds (by Russell Edson)
Erasing Amyloo (by Russell Edson)
Journey for an Old Fellow (by Russell Edson)
The Long Picnic (by Russell Edson)
Emily Dickinson (by Kevin Griffith)
It Happens in Kansas (by Kevin Griffith)
Treatment for The Wizard of Oz/Jean Paul Sartre (by Kevin Griffith)
Archeology of the Bed (by Kevin Griffith)
Landscape (by Michael Earl Craig)
March (by Michael Earl Craig)
Making a Movie (by Russell Edson)
How Things Will Be (by Russell Edson)
The Way Things Are (by Russell Edson)
You (by Russell Edson)
My Head (by Russell Edson)
The Wheelbarrow (by Russell Edson)
Journey To The East (by Bob Heman)
Garden (by Bob Heman)
Doll (by Bob Heman)
Land (by Bob Heman)
Saint (by Bob Heman)
Culture (by Bob Heman)
A Turkey in the Context of Bowling (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
Trace (by Michele Rappoport)*
To Help You Find Me (by Robin Turner)*
Virginia Woolf comes around unannounced (by Olga Dermott- Bond)*
From Ancient Legends and Infidelities, Ch. 2, “Sexual Shamans” (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Hillside (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Egypt from Space I (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Poem with Competing Theories of Pomegranate (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Art and Life (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
The Rose I Send Myself (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Story Problem (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
A Veronica (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Screamer (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
The American Fact (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Dog (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Scissors Cut the Ribbon and Bolster the Bride (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
Lighting a Cigarette with a Tree (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
The Accordionist is the Flower Eater is the Beggar is the Killed (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
Ludwig & Pascal (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
Game of Sound (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
Equus luciferis (by Greta Hayer)*
Hall, Montana, Easter Weekend (by Kelly Fordon)*
Self-Portrait as My Villager in Animal Crossing (by Jon Lemay)*
The Ark (by Charles Rafferty)*
On Being Told I Write Too Much About the Moon (by Charles Rafferty)*
The Telephone (by Shivani Mehta)
I Sit in A Restaurant and Wonder Where All the Black People Are (by Azure Velez)*
Dear Auden, (by Ellen June Wright)*
Checking (by Sarah Beth Childers)*
How Not To Make a Scene in a Time of Pandemic (by Debra Kang Dean)*
Poem in Which I Fail to Teach Homer (by Laura Passin)*
The Rescue (by L.L. Friedman)*
Glow-in-the-Dark Gecko (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Anzalduas Park (by Emmy Pérez)
[Magic needed] (by Emmy Pérez)
Dear Celan (by Emmy Pérez)
The Snarling, Whimpering Dogs (by Emmy Pérez)
The Valley Myth (by Emmy Pérez)
Green Light Go (by Emmy Pérez)
I’m watching a series about the ocean floor in bed while high and sad and I wanted to tell you (by Adrienne Crezo)*
On Wednesdays we wear pink. (by Adrienne Crezo)*
L’Art Brut (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
The Hollows 1. Gargoyle (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
The Hollows 2. Hollows (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
The Hollows 3. Child of Cups (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Little Archipelago 1. Island of Cats (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Little Archipelago 2. Island of Lepers (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Little Archipelago 3. Island of Nuns (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Invisible (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Afterlife (by Beckian Fritz Goldberg)
Wind (by Mary Oliver)
The Roses (by Mary Oliver)
A Settlement (by Mary Oliver)
Antique (by Arthur Rimbaud)
Royalty (by Arthur Rimbaud)
The Bridges (by Arthur Rimbaud)
City (by Arthur Rimbaud)
Ruts (by Arthur Rimbaud)
Flowers (by Arthur Rimbaud)
Winter Fête (by Arthur Rimbaud)
Bottom (by Arthur Rimbaud)
War (by Arthur Rimbaud)
Dewdrop Molecules (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
Movement (by Ace Boggess)*
This is Not a Love Poem (by Beth Dulin)*
Brain Waves (by Humboldt Falcon)*
The Quality of Mercy (by Jedediah Smith)*
Suna No Onna (by Zachary Schomburg)
This Is The Life (by Zachary Schomburg)
Durango, Colorado (by Zachary Schomburg)
lnflatable Barbeque Cart (by Zachary Schomburg)
Iceland (by Zachary Schomburg)
Continuity of Parks (by Zachary Schomburg)
The Cliff Floats Low (by Zachary Schomburg)
Falling for a Beam of Light (by Zachary Schomburg)
The Pursued Are Beautiful (by Zachary Schomburg)
Inside the Tiger (by Zachary Schomburg)
A Case for Holding (by Zachary Schomburg)
Feel the Falcon (by Zachary Schomburg)
Land of the Free (by Zachary Schomburg)
Wild Swan (by Zachary Schomburg)
Little by Little We Stop Thinking (by Zachary Schomburg)
This They’ll Say Serves You Rightly (by Zachary Schomburg)
The Crushing Pain of Existence (by Zachary Schomburg)
Hundreds of Years of Death (by Zachary Schomburg)
How the Strawberry Is Held (by Zachary Schomburg)
Afraid Cloud (by Zachary Schomburg)
Joke about Hamburgers (by Zachary Schomburg)
Thyroid (by Andrew McSorley)*
The world will be made while (by Jess Kadish)*
Backyard Pastoral with a Little Death (by Donna Vorreyer)*
Give a Kite Take a Kite (by Zachary Schomburg)
On Killing (by Zachary Schomburg)
Look at that Cloud (by Zachary Schomburg)
The Golden Years (by Zachary Schomburg)
No Going Back (by Zachary Schomburg)
Haircuts of Icebergs (by Zachary Schomburg)
How I am a Great Painter (by Zachary Schomburg)
Leg Entrance (by Zachary Schomburg)
Help Help (by Zachary Schomburg)
Lucky Donkey (by Zachary Schomburg)
Kind of Man (by Zachary Schomburg)
Sea Lion Caves Mug (by Zachary Schomburg)
How We Are Nothing (by Zachary Schomburg)
Death to Traitors (by Zachary Schomburg)
Bien Fang (by Zachary Schomburg)
Take Me to Your King (by Zachary Schomburg)
Trivia (by Wren Donovan)*
Everyone Has an Unreasonable Fear That Also Feels Like a Gift (by Mary Biddinger)*
Firsts (by Molly Sturdevant)*
levitate (by Adedayo Agarau)*
August (by Sara Elkamel)*
I Don’t Want to Pry (by James Yates)*
If I Don’t Die First, I Will Know She’s Dead and Then What Is There Left to Do but Also Be Dead (by Leigh Chadwick)*
I Saw Jesus in a Minivan (by Leigh Chadwick)*
In the Summer (by Adrienne Marie Barrios)*
Field Guide to the Proper Identification of Roadside Debris (by Cynthia Marie Hoffman)*
The Smoke Rose Out of Manhattan (by Charles Rafferty)*
The Bends (by Erika Eckart)*
The Sting Means It’s Working (by Amy Rossi)*
In Which I Aspire to Be the Wife on a Sitcom (by Lori Sambol Brody)*
The Slough There in the Field (by Kelly R. Samuels)*
I can conjure my own flowers (by Savannah Slone)*
In All the Rooms of This Year (by Naomi Washer)*
Of Magic & Moses (by Kate Finegan)*
Nice Roof—So Many Shingles (by Jeanne Morel and Anthony Warnke)*
Stephen Hawking Waits for the Time Travelers (by Meghan Phillips)*
Dark Money (by Sara Comito)*
We Are All Michael Stipe in his Rolled-up Shirtsleeves (by Beth Gilstrap)*
Dusk (by Vismai Rao)*
Cousinage: A Meet Cute (by Aaron Kreuter)*
Deleted Scenes from Friday Night Lights (by Leigh Chadwick)*
I Have an Idea (by David Wojciechowski)*
Tiny House Nation (by Brett Hanley)*
The Prose Poem (by Campbell McGrath)*
Sundays are for elegies (by Nicole Tallman)*
I Sit on the Couch Between My Father and My Son While They Watch a Professional Basketball Game Condensed into Ten Minutes of Highlights (by Amorak Huey)*
At the memorial service for the way things used to be (by Amorak Huey)*
Six Years in Sudbury, Ontario (by Amorak Huey)*
Lenapehoking Potholes (by Chris L. Butler)*
There’s a Website that Plays Any Video You Like, Reversed (by Sienna Zeilinger)*
Cosmonauts Used To Carry Guns Into Space (by Kirsten Reneau)*
The Shopping Plaza (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
Origins of Borscht, or: A Liter of Tree for Dr. Sky (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
The Devil Suggests (by Benjamin Niespodziany)*
Love Is An Umbrella Term (by Evan Nicholls)*
I Want to Tell Your Bacteria to Stop It with the Conjunctions (by Leigh Chadwick)*
If (by Cheryl Pappas)*

Lead image: “magnetic fridge poetry” (via Flickr user Steve Johnson)

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