What's the diffrence between poetry and delineated prose?

[rowens]

The original poster wants to discuss how poetry is written by talking about poetic craft in prose. Which means talking about poetic craft using prose not poetic craft in prose, though maybe using poetic craft in prose. The problem, that's not a problem in the problematic sense, that some people are experiencing locally, over long distances of space and shorter of time, on or in this site, is whether talking about poetry in prose can resist descending, or ascending, into poetry of a proseful and or prosaic kind. And he wants, as I and he already said, to talk about poetic craft. In general.

[Seraphim]

The question is not, in fact, one question, but *four*, with OP and the rest of the members of the discussion ignoring that distinction. Trying to shut down the discussion was a slight overreaction, on my part -- again, the insult in the first post may have been subconscious -- but, hopefully, this second response prompts clarifications from *all* members of the discussion on what it is they are actually pursuing.

Rowens is correct in what I want to talk about, but a discussion is not about one person.This one was taking on a life of its own, and I'd hate to see it killed off prematurely. If members want to continue this thread in the direction RiverNotch is suggesting, I'm more than happy to continue, and take the part of student, asking questions but keeping my opinion to myself. I've already given my opinion - possibly ad nauseum - so it's time for others to speak. It's easy enough to start another conversation on poetics in another thread.

And RiverNotch - no insult was intended. It was a miscalculation on my part how an attempt at humor would be taken.

So let the discussion continue as RIverNotch intends. I'm looking forward to the responses.

[churinga]

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.

[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

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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?

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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.

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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."

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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?"

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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.

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RN

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

[CRNDLSM]

Form is important, would you drink wine from a sippy cup? From a can? Maybe, but some say it affects the flavor. Taste the aluminum, the straw sends it straight to the throat less taste.
When I eat spaghetti I still think if it's better today from a plate or a bowl, with a fork or a spoon. Shoot, technically a spaghetti burrito would be like eating the garlic bread at the same time if it was a garlic flavored tortilla.

[rowens]

You can change the form but the form is still there. If you read a translation of a poem, the original language haunts it. If when translated the poem is in prose instead of verse, the form haunts it. The appeal and the character is as much the form as the content, as the form and content are living off each other. They are each other as a man's body and personality. Form and content. Content and form. They are an ideal unit in a material world of distinctions. A poem works in the literal technical craftmanship and the figurative myth of poetic context. The critical medium surrounding it indulges in literal operations and figurative myth-making. It's a sophisticated process of actualizing a primitive necessity. People are producing their own poetry, or at least poetic affect, all the time. The poetry we're talking about is less appealing to many people, it's a waste of energy. It's an addiction of an elite difficulty. But it's no less a common artisan craft as any other. My context is literal mythic, and each

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context is strengthened by discrimination and war. At least disbelief or disagreement.

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For me, a ghost out of a body is an unpleasant thing to be. A poem in a language possessed by a poem in another language might be a useful invocation. The meat of the poem's own context is concretely significant.

[Seraphim]

You can change the form but the form is still there. If you read a translation of a poem, the original language haunts it. If when translated the poem is in prose instead of verse, the form haunts it. The appeal and the character is as much the form as the content, as the form and content are living off each other. They are each other as a man's body and personality. Form and content. Content and form. They are an ideal unit in a material world of distinctions. A poem works in the literal technical craftmanship and the figurative myth of poetic context. The critical medium surrounding it indulges in literal operations and figurative myth-making. It's a sophisticated process of actualizing a primitive necessity. People are producing their own poetry, or at least poetic affect, all the time. The poetry we're talking about is less appealing to many people, it's a waste of energy. It's an addiction of an elite difficulty. But it's no less a common artisan craft as any other. My context is literal mythic, and each

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context is strengthened by discrimination and war. At least disbelief or disagreement.

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For me, a ghost out of a body is an unpleasant thing to be. A poem in a language possessed by a poem in another language might be a useful invocation. The meat of the poem's own context is concretely significant.

Are we using the same definition of the word 'form'?

[rowens]

Form or structure. Type. Devices. All that. The language, the words, the sounds, the line breaks, the grammar, syntax, all that. Sonnet, free verse, prose paragraphs, all that. The form implies some context as much as the content. In a heavy way or light way. Heavy in an allusive or traditional or visual or oral way. Light in a nearly arbitrary choice of form. All that.

[Seraphim]

OK. Just checking we were on the same page.

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So if I'm reading you correctly - and I just may be slow - I'm getting the impression of some social context to form. A strict sonnet written today, for example, brings along context from centuries ago, when they were primarily used as pronouncements of affection (?).

[rowens]

They can carry that context. Or they can transgress. Or ignore it.

[Seraphim]

I'm getting what you're saying, but I'm having trouble seeing how it applies.

If I have a message, I take as much or as little space as necessary to get it across. A quatrain, if a quatrain will serve; an octect or an octet and a quatrain if not. Line length determined - mostly - by the voice I want to establish. Any other considerations of form seem irrelevant to me.

I doubt it has much relevance for the reader, as well.

[rowens]

I'm thinking of poetry as a world of connections and allusions. In contents and forms. That's how I write. And I absorb all other points of view and methods into my worldview as aspects of my overall thing.

[Seraphim]

By 'overall thing' are you referring to your writing style, or are you referring to your thoughts on a more philosophical level?

[rowens]

I mean everything. I only acknowledge distinctions for effect. Dynamics. I mean experience. If I was a professional wrestler you could say I live my gimmick. Poetic techniques or lack of them are sacraments in a life. Reading and writing are hygienic devices. If I use a simile by accident, I think maybe next time I'll do it more forecfully, or maybe avoid it.

[Seraphim]

An interesting article on the topic, “Has poetry changed?”

https://www.vqronline.org/vqr-symposium/...itors-desk

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And, I think, an interesting flow-up to the previous article


https://www.vqronline.org/poetry/free-ve...ing-poetry

[rowens]

I don't know about all that, but I was wondering about how LDR, emphasis on LD, made that real good album called Born To Die. And then she wasn't so good afterworld. When I thought that song Fuck My Way to the Top was about Taylor Swift it was ok, but when it was suggested it wasn't. I don't know. I DON'T know. The earlier syllables. Like: I used to watch DAWSON'S creek. Instead of DAwsN's CrEek, like folks used to say. The experts call that uptalk. Like you're asking a question. My name is R owens. As if R? is emphasisorzed as a question. It sounds sexy when when college girls do it. I wanted to ask a question about Kafka's Amerika, if you EVER READ THAt BOOK it's pretty stellar, um, Okay, uh. So. And all these college girls are talking poetry just by a verbal trend that sounds so sexy and silly, and when men do it it just sounds lame.

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Aren't we so grateful when college girls sound just so natural and silly. No wonder so many college profressors ARE A poet. I was never good at tests. But since I was 12 years old I've lived near a high school busstop. That's why no matter how sophisticated my writing gets, it's still going to sound sophmoric. That's my form. No matter how old it gets, in my heart and soul, they stay the same age.

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I think the correct term,sir, is SophOMORic. Isn't it so sexy when your ephebes correct you like that (?).

[Seraphim]

So you’re a Taylor Swift fan?

[rowens]

Lana Del Rey.

[Seraphim]

*grin*

[rowens]

I think that poetry is so ingrained that people don't recgonize when they see or hear or feel it. It took me two hours to type that word 'recogonise' and I know I didn't get it right. I know the eytomology, so I know it just isn't right. I've been in mental hospital three times. I've been in jail twice. The last time is because I was in the street in a strange town yelling facist faggot every time a cop drove by. Those words meant nothing to me, I just was getting off on the alliteration. And the dumb college kids thought it meant something . . . but to me it was just and was twillig and the borogoves, but they ignited a whole zeitgeist on it, and I was just using two f terms together.

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Me and a teenage boy broke into an old house in the woods last night. And a deer came up and said he was going to press charges. Because him and his family had been living around there for the last two years. I said I knew a friend who was a hunter; so we settled out of court.