What's the diffrence between poetry and delineated prose?

[Seraphim]

Poetry is inseparable from its specific form. If you abstract the feeling of that poem or poetry, the feeling or whatever constitutes feelings in someone, maybe more than some one, is the form of the poetry. That is a general idea, one that most experience. But it's not useful for many people, at least not useful to think that way, at least not for writers of poetry with an eye to critical qualifications. With an emphasis on concrete, at least linguistical concrete structures, it's fair to submerge any ideas of poetry as feeling or leave them alone in a secondary or far off faded position in pseudoscience layers of worldliness involving philosophy and psychology, high school and ethnic pride ceremonies. In the hard world of tangible language unit constructions, poetry is a sum of its parts, form is not a social construct but an aesthetic, which is a social, construct with natural assurances lurking and tingling and seeping, and definitions are concrete-hard and placeable. You can't feel the brain but you can

---

feel the mind which is the same thing. You can feel the brain. Concrete. To feel poetry, it's communicated, to yourself, others. So the concentration is on the craft. The poetry comes in the craft. It's inseparable from its form and its form is its mere device for abstracting into other forms, feelings, ideas, matters.

I hear what you’re saying, but I’m not feeling it. I’m trying. To me, form is nothing more than a container. If I pour water from one container to another, it’s form changes but not it’s content. I’m not a formalist: I create a structure based on my desires. If I change the structure, the form changes with it. If. I shift from iambic to trochaic, the form changes to adjust. It’s the content that shapes the form. Changing Annie’s poem from IP to paragraph form changed it’s appearance, not its reading. So what am I missing, here?

---

Seraphim wrote:
There is a connection between poetry and lyric. But lyric relies on pitch and the duration of a musical note (quarter note, half note etc). Poetics in English relies on meter, whether the poet uses it consciously or not. Melody is based on the music. The closet poetry can come is a well executed rhythm - but it does not use pitch nor duration. What is does use is one of the topics I like to see discussed here - on a different thread.

.
I think you are completely wrong. Speech variation is called intonation and employs pitch. It is connected to both meaning, (humour , sarcasm, or simply elucidating syntax) plus the different sounds of words, (vowels and dipthongs) which tend to go with high and low notes eg 'me' 'moo', me will be pitched higher than moo, it is simply how we percieve the timbre of vowels, ay, ee, I , are high and sharp, oo, ah, ow are low and flat. So it is the sound of words and the juxaposition of words that create intonation. Intonation is not perceived as melody because mostly it just follows normal speech patterns which we are used to. But it is there. And in lyric poetry it is at the core of its appeal.

I’m getting you. I was thinking in terms of a different degree of pitch - musically. Intonation is used so naturally, one doesn’t think about it to that degree.

---

So we pretty much have the "Poetry is whatever I want it to be" mindset?  We look at we've written and say, "this is poetry."  The only distinction between prose and poetry is the fact we want it to be poetry?

So if I ask a painter about the elements of composition, he dismisses the concept and says, "It's art because I say so."

---

poetry for me is what the reader makes it. there will be and never can be a definitive answer to something so dynamic and creative.  we are what we say we are while also being what other's say we are.  poetry is shroedinger's cat being screwed by a non-existant dog.

The question was not, "What is poetry?", it was "what's the difference between prose and poetry?"

---

if we can define then we can say what the differences are. we don't ask any artist what art is we tell them it is or isn't art. art is art because it affects someone else or the artist. art is art because it affects me. art is not objective and the difference between the outright piece of prose and the outright piece of poetry is not objective. there is no concusive answers to questions like these, only subjective answers. rowens pieces are sometimes prose, sometimes poetry but it's not always easy to discern. i often see his block writing as poetry. many would see it as prose simply because it's a piece of block writing.

ps. i saw you posted further on saying you think you're be channelled. in truth you're not; you're being engaged. something we should all aim to be.

So while rowens says you can’t separate poetry from its form, you seem to be saying it’s merely a matter of perspective: some see his block writing as poetry despite its form, others call it prose because of its form. Not arguing here - trying to figure out positions.

---

RN

Thanks for your second reply. A lot to think about.