What's the diffrence between poetry and delineated prose?

[Seraphim]

If you gather all the splinter connotations of the word 'poetry', it's a value effect that's overseeing the construction. You move from prosaic to heightened language by valuing the language itself. You can separate individual definitions of 'prosaic' and have prose as prose and prose as less or not at all heightened language and anything, not only words, that is flat or dull or just not valuable to such a degree in affect. This I'm writing now is prosaic. It's prose. It's not poetry, though whether or not it's poetic is someone's value judgment. And to maintain any valid value judgment, you have to do a lot of examining and comparing of what is mostly consensus judgment of similar and different things, the different being more difficult. Your poetry can add to the dimensions of value, as can your prosaic or poetic critique of value. What is prosaic and what is poetic? The form is never separate from poetic. With prosaic, it's not so important.

OK, I'm trying to parse this - give me a few moments...

You mentioned heightened language. Please define the term and explain how we 'heighten' language. What tools and techniques do we use to accomplish such? It's easy to toss out a phrase, but if we don't know how to accomplish the goal of 'heightened language' - we have established no objective parameters (as UB might say) -then it's all guesswork and the term has no practical value for the student of prosody and poetics.

You mentioned form. Is form necessary to poetry? The term 'prose poem' was mentioned; how is this apparent contradiction of terms possible, then? If you remove the form from the words - eliminate the line - does that that not make it prose? If we heighten the language of prose, and it becomes poetry, how can a prose poem exists?

Or is an answer possible within the realm of both terms combined?

As you use therm 'value', it seems to apply to both poetry and prose evenly. I'm looking for a difference - a definitive and articulable differenc.. 'Value' is also a subjective term. But perhaps I'm not completely understanding your response.

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Now, the meat of my opinion. There is no difference. I mean this as an answer, not a non-answer. They are not opposites, and the distinction between them is not mutually exclusive, nor is the categorization binary. Prose can be poetry, and poetry can be prosaic. Some writing can be neither.

Prose is your format and delivery. If I write a speech, a lecture, an essay, an instruction manual -- it is prose. It should be capable of delivering a point (or multiple points -- that is, lessons/morals/objectives) in a straightforward manner. In a single sentence:
A writing is prose when it reaches an objective without making the reader interpret the writing for veiled meaning.
This does not mean it cannot contain other objectives that are hidden and require interpretation.

Poetry, in my mind, is about compression. It can be delivered in the same linguistic styles as typical prose, and can have some straightforward objective. Thus, we achieve overlap between the two terms -- the distinction is not diametric. For me to consider a writing as poetry, it must compress the information it conveys (not feeling -- while poetry can convey feeling, I don't believe the transfer of feeling holds any bearing on it's definition and categorization). Now, of course, my definition may discount some "poems" that the rest of the world accepts as poetry, but it falls in the same hole as me looking at an ink blob and thinking "you call that art?" Poetry must compress. If the writing does not contain more information than the markings on the page individually represent, it is not poetic.

I'm not sure I've ever heard prose and poetry being described as polar opposites. Rowens has suggested a relationship to the two which cannot separated, and has suggested concepts which differentiate between the two - in his opinion. Personally, I battle with your suggestion that prose can be poetry and vice versa. I see no dispute with the suggestion prose can be poetic, perhaps even poetry can be prosaic (though that would have to be explained if anyone wants to take up the challenge), but I can't see a writing being both.

Prose doesn't make the reader search for veiled meaning? "Au contraire," I would shout, if I knew what meant lol. Prose can use symbolism, allegory, analogy, etc and fine prose often does, IMO. One of my favourite authors created an entire world based on [lightly] hidden meaning, and as such became one of the most endeared writers of our generation. (Sorry to digress). Don't want it so deeply hidden - in either poetry or prose - the reader never finds it. Are you arguing these are tools one can use in poetry? Certainly. One might even argue meaning can be hidden more deeply in a poem which is "compressed" because a reader has more time to be contemplative, as there might not be too much material to parse. But does all poetry use hidden levels of meaning? Not in my opinion. Are all poems 'compressed? Again, I'll mention epic poetry. Nothing finer than to be forced to wade through the adventure of Odysseus *snort*. Compression is another tool, but I don't believe it [alone] is a definitive one.

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I think we're whittling the apple down to a possible core, having taken the time to peel it first. Each response is starting to head us to a certain direction, in my mind.

Quix

Haven't heard you jump back in.