What are the similarities and differences between prose and poetry?

Classically, prose is defined as a form of language based on its structure and flow of speech.It is contrasted with poetry which is said to depend on a rhythmic structure using meter or rhyme.Literature, journalism, history, philosophy, encyclopedias, film and law rely on prose for the bulk of what they have to say.

The Old French prose is what inspired the wordprose to first appear in English in the 14th century.The Latin expression prosa oratio means straight forward or direct speech.A metrical scheme and some element of rhyme are included in poetry.

They are part of a spectrum of communication using words.

At one end of the spectrum, we have a highly precise, usually much shorter and concentrated focus not only on the choice of particular words, their meanings and their sounds, but also the gaps between them.The gaps, holes, absences or vacuums create a pulse of attention which we call rhythm.At the other end, we have a pattern of words in which meanings and sounds are looser and the gaps between them less significant.The role of rhythm is less important.

If one requires less attention from a reader to achieve what one has to say, one can safely use prose.

The poem Where I Come From is an example of this.The poem does not have a rhyme scheme.It reads like prose.

The opening of Where I Come From has a simple proposition: people are made of places.They carry with them/hints of jungles or mountains, a tropic grace or the cool eyes of sea gazers.The eyes of the sea gazers are cool.This is immediately different from a commonplace statement.

The 'almost-not-smell of tulips' shows a more careful playing with words than a piece of prose writing.It is precisely these differences, these variations from an expected prose line, which create the tiny vacuums or gaps which draw in our attention more fully than had the writer said something like "The atmosphere of cities drops from them in a different fashion" or "the very faint smell of tulips clingsscrupuo engineering is indicated by the sound at the end of 'tulips' and the word 'drops'.

It is a good idea to slip toward prose.The appeal is to the well-recognized olfactory sense, even though it has been since 'Atmosphere' was mentioned.Most of her readers will know the scent of chrome plated offices, if not of glue factories.The universally-experienced smell of subways/crowded at rush hour evokes that experience while also suggesting that it is universal.

That is the point.The sestet of a sonnet is used to fill in the hollowness of modern existence in her first and second lines.

The expansion of the image to acres of pine woods transforms the emptiness created by the first line into a richly filled space.The poet uses alliteration and assonance to evoke a visual scene.

The age of the farmhouses, their need of paint, and the circling about of chickens are all in opposition to the chrome plated offices.

Despite the lack of rhyme or rhythm, more care has been taken in selecting words that have different meanings.The fertility of these images, the depth of significance plumbed - even the choice of the flower often symbolising death - indicate a move toward a more methodical word-choreography than a prose writer would normally use.

The same point that she makes - her longing for a simpler and more natural life, oriented to the 'Spring and winter' of 'the mind's chief seasons' - could be made with prose.The longing that this poem elicits, expressed most succinctly in its last lines, could be captured almost exactly by a literary prose.

A prose passage could transmit ideas, even images, perhaps even the subtle beauty of the poem, but the poet wants to stick readers to her own experience.The poetic end of the spectrum is where the way to do that is through the vacuums.

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I am a published author and poet with over 5,000 items of merchandise available featuring my artwork, have edited and published many books, taught many people, made many more laugh, and have ventured into business on many levels.