04-08-2014, 04:45 AM
Your question is "what is the difference between a story and a poem?" and herein lies your problem. A "story" is not a text type, it is a purpose. One may tell a story to one's mates down the pub; a news article may be considered a story; a story involving a few dwarves and some runaway housemaid may be rendered by Walt Disney into a cinematic masterpiece.
As milo points out, within poetry there are two accepted subsets: lyric, which deals with thoughts, emotions, philosophies, reflections etc.; and narrative, which tells... wait for it... a story. Of course there are crossovers and elements from each that bleed into the other, because we are artists who do not appreciate boxes (well, most of us are, except for John Betjeman* apparently).
Poetry has been used as a vessel for "stories" for millennia. Bards would memorise thousands of poems as their stock-in-trade and be expected to add many more by the end of their careers, which were in turn passed to their apprentices. A narrative is certainly no less poetry than a lyric; it is simply that recent trends have diminished the poem as a narrative device because people have been far too concerned about how much their souls bleed and why that girl has gone and left 'em broken on the floor.
As milo points out, within poetry there are two accepted subsets: lyric, which deals with thoughts, emotions, philosophies, reflections etc.; and narrative, which tells... wait for it... a story. Of course there are crossovers and elements from each that bleed into the other, because we are artists who do not appreciate boxes (well, most of us are, except for John Betjeman* apparently).
Poetry has been used as a vessel for "stories" for millennia. Bards would memorise thousands of poems as their stock-in-trade and be expected to add many more by the end of their careers, which were in turn passed to their apprentices. A narrative is certainly no less poetry than a lyric; it is simply that recent trends have diminished the poem as a narrative device because people have been far too concerned about how much their souls bleed and why that girl has gone and left 'em broken on the floor.
It could be worse