ABSTRACT
The task of defining the prose poem has generated much critical anxiety. The transformation of the medium (poetic prose) into the genre (prose poem) seems to require sharp differentiations, and the clearing of a space around the form. But it is doubtful whether the terms of differentiation most often resorted to brevity, intensity, autonomy, can be applied with sufficient persuasiveness, or whether such a differentiation is historically justified. In describing what takes place when a verse poem becomes a prose poem, it is usual to propose that rhyme and 'mesure' are removed. The prose poem is highly uncoded and has no syllabic stability. Hyphenization in the translation is designed, certainly, to increase the sense of impatient dynamism, verbal elements being welded together in the poet's insatiable appetite for experience. It is intended that the hyphen should have a dialectical relationship with the dash.
