a point arose about this is not poetry

[abu nuwas]

1 or 2% of newbs write decent stuff. The rest need to go to AP purgatory until they have done enough penance to allow entrance into Pig Pen heaven.

Dale, that's terrible. Nobody deserves AP purgatory. We have our own purgatory and there's wine.

The fact is, 1-2% of the poetry world writes decent stuff -- actually, even the decent writers probably only write 1-2% decent stuff and the rest is crap. At least here you're in good company, with people who are prepared to help clean up the crap. And did I mention there's wine?

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Pfft. Dionysus. Where'd you get that idea, Ray?

Quality aside, this old chestnut of a debate always seems, to me, to overlook something: prose.

We repeatedly refer to it, and contrast it with poetry, which implies that we do know what prose is. And if all written material is either one or the other, then all that is not prose must, by definition, be poetry. Problem solved.

Absolutely no need to muddy the waters with talk of a 'prose poem'. Fine for French intellectuals like St-John Perse, but otherwise, a red herring. N'est-ce pas? Un hareng rouge, pour ainsi dire...