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Poetry vs Prose
In my quest to working out how one becomes a poet I am starting from basics. The first starting point is to define what poetry is and how it differs from prose. Further complicated by the idea of a prose poem …
Definitions
According to my trusty pocket oxford dictionary:
Poetry is the art or work of a poet, and a poet is a writer of poems. A poem is a metrical composition (especially of elevated character) and is an elevated composition in prose or verse.
Prose is the ordinary non-metrical form of written or spoken language.
What Does That Mean?
From these definitions it seems that the crucial distinguishing features of poetry in all its forms are:
· Beat
· Use of language
· Written by a poet
A poem is identified by a poet as a poem. You expect a poem to use language as images, sounds and emotions generated as a performance by the poet.
To give an example: a shopping list is prosaic prose except when turned by a poet into a poem. There is a poetic form which is the list poem. This is, as the name suggests, a poem that lists things, often with a surprise twist at the end. There are many poems published under the title of shopping list poem.
