[stylist] Poetry and Prose

[Chelsea Cook]

Hi Vejas,

I thought I’d chime in on the poetry vs. prose discussion, since I have experience with both and write most of my own poems in free verse. Keep in mind that my feelings are somewhat experiential, I started to write poetry before reading much of it myself in braille.

Free verse doesn’t necessarily need a form. Think E. E. Commings, who hardly used any punctuation at all in his work. That said, you can still have fun with line length and wordplay; free verse is great for this. Every line doesn’t have to have a certain number of syllables—unless you are specifically writing a haiku or limerick—but your idea does bring up a technique I used in one of my recent poems. The first line of a stanza was one word, the second line two, third three, etc. When I got to five words, I would reverse the trend. To me, free verse allows for the challenges to be slightly more creative in terms of structure, but I’ve never been good at rhyming, so others may disagree.

As to whether free verse is prose, I would refer you to Myrna’s excellent definition. I once saw a statement that “Poetry is a compressed language,” and that meaning has always stayed with me. So when writing poetry, I try to use as few and yet as powerful words as possible. I am intrigued by the concept of prose-poetry and will have to read that Wikipedia article. While a lyrical/musical quality is important and essential in poetry, it can also show up in prose, and sometimes this is the goal as with a well-written speech. You want the audience to remember what you say, so you try to match words and use poetic techniques that will easily catch on in oral form, even though you are technically writing prose.

I hope this helps you out.

Chelsea