poetry or prose?
Introduction The distinction between poetry and prose has never worried me too much. The only people who need to worry are judges, editors and anthologists - if they get it "wrong" they'll receive lots of feedback and might not be asked to do the job again. Some people try to define poetry based on analysis of the text, often using unquantifiable terms like "density" and "intensity". Sound is frequently mentioned in these definitions. This approach faces several problems Such definitions tend to exclude accepted poetic genres - e.g. light verse, shaped poetry, poems like "The Red Wheelbarrow", or LANGUAGE poetry The definitions tend to stray into discussing Quality rather than Category issues, describing what a good poem should have rather than what a poem requires Borderline texts ("Found poetry", "Prose poetry") are difficult to handle Reader-centred approaches seem more useful. Rather than classifying texts as "po...