Huda J. Fakhreddine explores the ‘new genre’ of the Arabic prose poem as a poetic practice and a critical lens. This poetic form gave rise to a profound, contentious and continuing debate about Arabic poetry: its definition, its limits and its relation to its readers. Fakhreddine examines the history of the prose poem, its claims of autonomy and distance from its socio-political context, and the anxiety and scandal it generated.