I’m thrilled to announce that my poem “Imaginary Cities: Capa” has been included in the Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry, edited by Cassandra Atherton and Paul Hetherington, and published by Melbourne University Press.

According to the blurb:

Prose poetry is a resurgent literary form in the English-speaking world and has been rapidly gaining popularity in Australia. Cassandra Atherton and Paul Hetherington have gathered a broad and representative selection of the best Australian prose poems written over the last fifty years. The Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry includes numerous distinguished prose poets; Jordie Albiston, Joanne burns, Gary Catalano, Anna Couani, Alex Skovron, Samuel Wagan Watson, Ania Walwicz and many more; and documents prose poetry’s growing appeal over recent decades, from the poetic margins to the mainstream. This collection reframes our understanding not only of this dynamic poetic form, but of Australian poetry as a whole.

It’s super exciting that “Capa” has received not a second but a third lease of life, having first “appeared” in the pages of Southerly waaaaaay back in 2007.

Actually, if we’re getting technical, the first time “Capa” actually made an appearance in the world was in 2005, when I entered a PC Bang in Seoul, typed a wall of text and published it on my Blogger site.

“Capa” describes an imaginary city (literally, “Capa”-city) which could be in North Korea, or the Heilongjiang province of China, or anywhere where it’s cold and miserable. Of all the cities I imagined during my four months in Seoul, it is probably one of my favourites.

Over time, I’ve wrestled with the question of whether my Imaginary Cities are prose poems or simply poems. At one point I had the idea of “stanzifying” them–that is, adding line breaks and enjambement to make the pieces appear more like poems.

See for example 대담시: Audacity.

I’m not sure it’s worth the effort, to be honest, especially when you compare it to the layout and feel of the version of “Capa” that graces the pages of the Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry.

I mean, it’s perfect. If only every imaginary city could fit so nicely–so netjes–on the page!