Hetherington and Atherton explain the contemporary proliferation of short forms by, for example, referring to 'the persistent noise of technology and the twenty-four-hour news cycle ' (p. 227). I am interested in the distinctions among various short forms, especially because the fabulous Spineless Wonders publishes anthologies as part of their joanne burns award. The anthologies are usually subtitled 'an anthology of prose poems and microfiction'. Atherton has judged the award and edited its

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... hologies several times. Hetherington and Atherton argue that 'nomenclature and labelling [matter] a great deal', 'not least because readers approach ... forms in different ways ' (pp. 235-236). They do 'confirm that prose poetry and very short forms of fiction are usually identifiable and fairly easily distinguishable' (p. 233), because the narrative drive of fiction is lacking in the prose poem which, rather, uses wordplay, repetition and metaphor to convey the momentum of action (p. 233). They also discuss the differences between the prose poem and poetic prose, the former characterised by brevity and compression, and the latter by, using British writer, editor and dancer Nikki Santilli's term, 'florid verbosity' (p. 6). 'It is only upon reading [prose poems] that surprises happen, and what appears to be a standard paragraph is outed as a prose poem' (p. 15). Necessarily, another chapter gives an overview of the form's history, inevitably mentioning Baudelaire and other familiar names. I did wonder if there is an Eastern tradition of the prose poem. Under a chapter on closed and open forms is the subtitle 'Contemporary Reinvention of the Haibun and Other Prose Poem Varieties'; here, Hetherington and Atherton quote British poet Dennis Keene arguing that the prose poem in some form 'has a much longer history in Japanese than it has in French' (p. 91). In the chapter on figurative language, they use the work of the Malaysian poet Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé to demonstrate 'Prose Poetry and Postcolonial Intertexts ' (p. 193). Other chapters attempt to come to grips with definitions, characteristics, methods of writing, and explaining the affect/effect of the form on the reader. The provocative and informative subtitles of chapters, some referred to above, require equal attention for the ideas they contain. Within the 'Introduction' is 'The Prose Poem and Subversion'; within 'Women and Prose Poetry' is 'Experimental Prose Poetry'; and within 'Prose Poetry and the Very Short Form' is 'The Contemporary Prose Poem and the Future'. And that future? 'The prose poem's time has come' (p. 245).