Edson began publishing poetry in the 1960s. He has been called "the godfather of prose poems in America" by Booklist's Ray Olson. Edson has been quoted as saying "Prose comes so naturally that one doesn't really have to choose it, it's already in one's mouth".
"An artist who moonlights as a dentist. A worm who's eternal. A farmer who milks his cow to death. Not to mention the guy with a belly button for an eye. Russell Edson, self-named Little Mr. Prose Poem, returns with See Jack, a book of fractured fairy tales, whose impeccable logic undermines logic itself, a book that champions what he has called elsewhere 'the dark uncomfortable metaphor.' 'What better way to die, ' he writes in the final prose poem, 'than waiting for the fat lady to sing in the make-believe of theater, where nothing's real, not the fat lady, not even death . . . ' See Jack may be Edson's best book yet--proof that his imaginative powers keep growing. What a deliciously scary thought!"
--Peter Johnson
