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Bush, Leonard composed the prose poem “I Want a President,” a wish list of character traits for the nation’s next leader.

I knew then that my main character, Hà, had to tell her story in prose poems.

Millner’s narrator — a 28-year-old poet — tells her love story in both the first and second person, bluffing her way through becoming herself in couplets and prose poems.

Mr. Simic was a prolific writer who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for “The World Doesn’t End,” a book of prose poems.

“Animal Joy” is at once prose poem, manifesto, sociological study and therapy session.