The House of Your Dream: An International Collection of Prose Poetry
EDITORS
Robert Alexander and Dennis Maloney
The House of Your Dream is an international collection of prose poetry drawn from over thirty years of prose poetry publications by White Pine Press. The anthology is unique in its diversity and includes voices from Europe, Asia, South America, and the U.S. including: Nin Andrews, Robert Bly, Ales Debeljak, Russell Edson, Maria Harris, Juan Ramon Jimenez, Peter Johnson, Kim Kwang Kyu, Morton Marcus, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, Naomi Shihab Nye, Charles Simic, Tomas Transtromer, James Wright, and many others.
Reviews
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.
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.
— The Olives of Oblivion
Yes, The House of Your Dream is a collection of prose poetry. But a collection that crosses lines most poetry stays behind. There are narratives, characters, voices, stories in these pieces of writing. They have the mind of a poem but the body of prose. They might be fictions or autobiographies, who can tell apart from the authors? There are ninety authors represented in this collection, so it would be difficult to ask them all.…This book is about discovery, not reading cover to cover, but picking out stories or prose poems that appeal to us in the moment and relishing them.
— Annie Clarkson, The Short Review
Dennis Maloney is a poet and translator. A number of volumes of his own poetry have been published including The Map Is Not the Territory: Poems & Translations and Just Enough, and Listening to Tao Yuan Ming. A bilingual German/English volume, Empty Cup was published in Germany in 2017. Recent collections include The Things I Notice Now and The Faces of Guan Yin. His poems have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Robert Alexander (1949 - 2023) received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, and worked for many years as a freelance editor. From 1993 to 2001, he was a contributing editor at New Rivers Press, serving for the final two years as New Rivers’ creative director. Alexander is the founding editor of the Marie Alexander Poetry Series at White Pine Press. He authored several collections of prose poetry and two historical books.