On the difference between poetry and prose
Nov. 9th, 2010 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhian_crockettA rant, or some thoughts -- I'm not sure which, yet, but you'll know by the end, I'm sure -- on the relationship between poetry and prose. Some reactions I've seen in the past few days: "whippersnappers these days don't know what real poetry is, they don't teach them anything these days"; "pretentious prose writers keep evilly sneaking poetry into their novels"; "there isn't an essential difference between poetry and prose". Etc.
I'm in the latter camp ("no difference", I mean, not "etc"). I don't honestly see the meaningful difference, as a poet who is also a prose-poet who is also a novelist who is also a literary critic. Microfiction is also called prose-poetry, and sometimes the same piece is considered to be poetry in one anthology and a piece of short prose in another. Sometimes I have no idea where the meaningful difference lies... and I don't see anything wrong with that.
I chose microfiction as the framework for this discussion, because it's a point already under some discussion. However, my feeling is that the same things are applicable regardless of length. A piece of work that consistently pays attention to its use of language -- the rhythm and sound, the imagery, and other such useful poetic devices -- is poetry, to me, in a sense. If it's presented to me as a novel, I'm likely to call it that, because that's what it is first and foremost, but I think the line between poetry and prose is an artificial one.
What exactly is the difference? Is it one of form? Is the difference between poetry and prose the way it is arranged on the page? So if I took Dylan Thomas' famous villanelle and arranged it as prose, it would become prose? Granted, it would still have the very specific rhyme scheme and echoes of its form, so instead say that I took one of Carol Ann Duffy's free verse poems, and arranged that as prose. What now?
Is it one of length? Past a certain length, something is no longer poetry but a novel and therefore prose? What happens then to famous works like Homer's Iliad, or Beowulf, or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?
Is it about the language? In which case, how do you draw the line? There are plenty of poems that don't use the 'fancy' words of poetry: Seamus Heaney's, for example, are down to earth and plain. What, then, makes them poetry and not prose?
If I write a short story, and it has its own internal rhymes, and a very specific rhythm that I spent hours creating, and condensed and crowded images that most people accept only in poetry, but it also tells a story and has dialogue and is arranged like prose, what then? And what if I wrote an entire novel like that?
I just don't think there's always a meaningful boundary. And personally, I won't be insulted if you read my work and spot poetic language in my prose. That's pretty much crucially the point. If it's there, I did it on purpose. It's not some kind of scam, and blurring those clear-cut boundaries is fun. I promise, it doesn't actually impinge on anyone's ability to appreciate "real" poetry.
(I am not sure I became as coherent as I wished to, in the course of this. View it more along the lines of a rant than some kind of anti-prose/poetry boundary manifesto.)
I'm in the latter camp ("no difference", I mean, not "etc"). I don't honestly see the meaningful difference, as a poet who is also a prose-poet who is also a novelist who is also a literary critic. Microfiction is also called prose-poetry, and sometimes the same piece is considered to be poetry in one anthology and a piece of short prose in another. Sometimes I have no idea where the meaningful difference lies... and I don't see anything wrong with that.
I chose microfiction as the framework for this discussion, because it's a point already under some discussion. However, my feeling is that the same things are applicable regardless of length. A piece of work that consistently pays attention to its use of language -- the rhythm and sound, the imagery, and other such useful poetic devices -- is poetry, to me, in a sense. If it's presented to me as a novel, I'm likely to call it that, because that's what it is first and foremost, but I think the line between poetry and prose is an artificial one.
What exactly is the difference? Is it one of form? Is the difference between poetry and prose the way it is arranged on the page? So if I took Dylan Thomas' famous villanelle and arranged it as prose, it would become prose? Granted, it would still have the very specific rhyme scheme and echoes of its form, so instead say that I took one of Carol Ann Duffy's free verse poems, and arranged that as prose. What now?
Is it one of length? Past a certain length, something is no longer poetry but a novel and therefore prose? What happens then to famous works like Homer's Iliad, or Beowulf, or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?
Is it about the language? In which case, how do you draw the line? There are plenty of poems that don't use the 'fancy' words of poetry: Seamus Heaney's, for example, are down to earth and plain. What, then, makes them poetry and not prose?
If I write a short story, and it has its own internal rhymes, and a very specific rhythm that I spent hours creating, and condensed and crowded images that most people accept only in poetry, but it also tells a story and has dialogue and is arranged like prose, what then? And what if I wrote an entire novel like that?
I just don't think there's always a meaningful boundary. And personally, I won't be insulted if you read my work and spot poetic language in my prose. That's pretty much crucially the point. If it's there, I did it on purpose. It's not some kind of scam, and blurring those clear-cut boundaries is fun. I promise, it doesn't actually impinge on anyone's ability to appreciate "real" poetry.
(I am not sure I became as coherent as I wished to, in the course of this. View it more along the lines of a rant than some kind of anti-prose/poetry boundary manifesto.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-09 11:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-09 11:59 am (UTC)This year April had a blizzard
Just to show she did not care
And the new dead leaves
They made the trees look like children with gray hair
But I'll push myself up through the dirt
And shake my petals free
I'm resolved to being born
And so resigned to bravery
(Dar Williams, 'Spring Street'.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-09 12:01 pm (UTC)And... yeah. I agree with you, and I just don't understand that mentality at all.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-09 12:09 pm (UTC)At one point, I was strongly considering writing my dissertation on Dar Williams' lyrics. Ended up not doing a dissertation, which is probably good for my sanity, since I'd probably have had to have that argument every week.