So...what's the difference?

[ellabee]

I have a story for discussion at the Story Discussion Circle, and one of the comments was, "are you sure this isn't poetry?"

Which made me realize that I'm honestly not sure it isn't.

The piece is 800 words. 16 50-word stories that (were meant to, anyway) work as individual bits as well as a cohesive piece.

Is that poetry? Or prose?

A sample from the non-erotic bits:

Discussion

He promised we would talk.

We concentrate on the street instead of each other.

Thin, translucent smoke curls into the crisp air. His menthol is smooth and cool, like autumn. My clove is spicy-sweet; my lips taste like cinnamon.

The clove crackles with each drag.

I never did like silence.


And one from the erotic...:

Culmination

He is nervous. He trembles as he strips. Shirt, pants, gray furry hat, socks. His beautiful debris litters my carpet.

We fumble in the dark.

I find a condom. He finds my cunt.

I can feel his heart beating through his cock.

He grunts. Seven minutes.

It’s been a while.


Any insight to the difference between poetry and prose as it stands would be much appreciated.

Ella

 

[champagne1982]

Hi Ella

This discussion is certain to come up with more frequency as the popularity of micro-fiction grows. The given characteristics of prose include: The need for story structure--beginning, middle, and end; a tell narrative--the author needs to explain the scene and the characters; and, an intrinsically "non-poetic" style (at least in some people's views).

I was lambasted a few years back when I submitted an entry for the Halloween contest that is unabashedly poetry and was told I had no business in submitting it as a story. I couldn't see why not, but many people were very adamant about it. Still, I won and the admins entered it in the contest, by the time they did, however, it was too late to garner many reads or votes. C'est la guerre, n'est-ce pas?

Any way, back to your question. How do you feel about your short shorts with the list above in mind? Do you fill the needs in each little story to make them prose? Would you be better served calling the collection "prose poetry" or leaving them defined as you have?

Don't let anyone dictate that you can't submit a collection such as yours in the story section, but realize that if you include an introduction to the body of work explaining their nature as micro-fiction and prose poetry you may be putting yourself up as troll-bait or not have as many reads as you could get by including them as poetry.

Good luck, either way.

 

[arielsgoddess]

Here's s question I never see answered on Forum:

Where does the prose go? I have seen the story boards complain when someone has entered somehing that they defined as 'poetry' because it was in a less structured or less 'fleshed-out' piece, even if it did not feature the pretty phrases or the 'poetic license' fantasy elements. Here on the poetry board, I am one of those often criticized as having pieces which are called too long, narrative or 'meaty' to be poetry (to which I can counter with volumes of the greats and masters, who on occasion wrote same).

The point is, do we have a separate place to post prose? If so, are there clear definitions as to what would be considered appropriate for placement there. If not, why not? There is atleast a third of the population in the boards that think we should hold to some kind of definitive guidelines for posting. I see nothing wrong with order--just there should be a place for everything, if the consensus is everything in its place.

 

[The_Fool]

There is no such thing as poetry.

 

[Angeline]

Where does the prose go? I have seen the story boards complain when someone has entered somehing that they defined as 'poetry' because it was in a less structured or less 'fleshed-out' piece, even if it did not feature the pretty phrases or the 'poetic license' fantasy elements. Here on the poetry board, I am one of those often criticized as having pieces which are called too long, narrative or 'meaty' to be poetry (to which I can counter with volumes of the greats and masters, who on occasion wrote same).

The point is, do we have a separate place to post prose? If so, are there clear definitions as to what would be considered appropriate for placement there. If not, why not? There is at least a third of the population in the boards that think we should hold to some kind of definitive guidelines for posting. I see nothing wrong with order--just there should be a place for everything, if the consensus is everything in its place.

People have written prose and prose poetry and flash fiction here (on this forum) over the years and submitted it. The only time we've bumped up against restrictions is like when Champ wrote that long Halloween poem because of word length requirements. That's the arbitrary way that Lit insists on dividing poetry from stories. And I suppose it makes as much sense as any way of distinguishing the two. Some writing that the writer considered "poetry" may have to be classified as a story, and I've seen over the years that many short prose pieces that are clearly intended as stories wind up with poem classifications. I guess the problem is that there's some point where the line between the two genres becomes impossible to distinguish--I think that was sort of the case with Champ's poem because it is long and narrative. But really who cares as long as we know what we're writing?

The only thing that bugs me is that poems can never win any of the big contests here, hence none of the big money prizes. That'd be sweet if we could but obviously the (obvious) rewards here come from writing porn, not sonnets. Not even porny sonnets.

There is no such thing as poetry.

Stop making trouble ya sonnetizing fooly.

 

[The_Fool]

Stop making trouble ya sonnetizing fooly.

It’s not as if there was no desire.
Oh stop, let the words flow through the night.
He finds the taste of her all he requires,
Dark, dark, two shadows moving without light.

But light is not that kind to shadowed love;
or lust if one attempts to be exact.
And tension fills the fingers of the glove.
They do not ponder on the deed, just act.

He’s learned she likes to sigh on display
to movements made in obscure minor key.
It’s not as if he knows what he should say,
instead he always wonders what to be.

Her kiss, a cherished memory he dreams,
the sweetness in his coffee without cream.

 

[The_Fool]

People have written prose and prose poetry and flash fiction here (on this forum) over the years and submitted it. The only time we've bumped up against restrictions is like when Champ wrote that long Halloween poem because of word length requirements. That's the arbitrary way that Lit insists on dividing poetry from stories. And I suppose it makes as much sense as any way of distinguishing the two. Some writing that the writer considered "poetry" may have to be classified as a story, and I've seen over the years that many short prose pieces that are clearly intended as stories wind up with poem classifications. I guess the problem is that there's some point where the line between the two genres becomes impossible to distinguish--I think that was sort of the case with Champ's poem because it is long and narrative. But really who cares as long as we know what we're writing?

The only thing that bugs me is that poems can never win any of the big contests here, hence none of the big money prizes. That'd be sweet if we could but obviously the (obvious) rewards here come from writing porn, not sonnets. Not even porny sonnets.



Stop making trouble ya sonnetizing fooly.

Just to set the record straight. I never know what I am righting....

 

[Angeline]

It’s not as if there was no desire.
Oh stop, let the words flow through the night.
He finds the taste of her all he requires,
Dark, dark, two shadows moving without light.

But light is not that kind to shadowed love;
or lust if one attempts to be exact.
And tension fills the fingers of the glove.
They do not ponder on the deed, just act.

He’s learned she likes to sigh on display
to movements made in obscure minor key.
It’s not as if he knows what he should say,
instead he always wonders what to be.

Her kiss, a cherished memory he dreams,
the sweetness in his coffee without cream.

Lovely.

I'm watching the Ken Burns Jazz series on instant view at Netflix. I like those obscure minor keys. And the flatted fifths, too.

Just to set the record straight. I never know what I am righting....

And yet somehow you produce wonderful poems.

 

[ellabee]

Thanks, all.

I submitted the story as "prose" under Erotic Couplings because it does meet the word length for stories (750). There are quite a few 15 50-worders, mostly by Oggbashan, that appear under various "prose" categories.

I was wondering, though, if perhaps the looser style of the writing would make it more poem-y. Ogg's writing tends to be tighter, leaving much less to the imagination. Beautiful, but more obviously prose-like.

 

[lorencino]

What am I

It's all a matter of conventions and fashions
and the expectations that result from these.

Order is needed to make sense; nonsense drives
creativity to draw new sense and new ways
of making sense. Are we, in this instant,
in poem or prose, or echoing sense through
strung words?

 

[Angeline]

It's all a matter of conventions and fashions
and the expectations that result from these.

Order is needed to make sense; nonsense drives
creativity to draw new sense and new ways
of making sense. Are we, in this instant,
in poem or prose, or echoing sense through
strung words?

In other words it's what the writer or reader thinks it is. Works for me.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

In other words it's what the writer or reader thinks it is. Works for me.

Nice to know you agree with me because that's what I put on the original thread

 

[Angeline]

Nice to know you agree with me because that's what I put on the original thread

Lol. Really? Well it surprises me not at all that we see it the same way.

 

[hmmnmm]

Dear ellabee,
Your predicament is very familiar to me. I never thought of myself as a poet and I still don't think of myself as a poet. I only came over to the poetry side because I noticed there were recurrent complaints about the prose I would submit here; as I slowly began to put the pieces together they seemed to form a finger that pointed towards the Poetic.

I sure will make no claim to knowing anything about poetry or real poetry, because the next stage came when I realized I really didn't care about what made something poetry or prose or, as Angeline coined a while back, prosetry. I know it matters to others. Poetry matters to the real poets, and story matters to the real story writers. I'm best off when it doesn't matter to me. Maybe you're kinda the same.

But if we make something that has words, and we want to share it, and we decide to avail ourselves of this venue, then we have to put it somewhere. If it's less than 750 words we can't put it in Story. For instance. I've long wanted to suggest they have some sort of In-Between category. If we were to meet at a coffee shop or at the kitchen table and you brought your writings for me to read, I would be much more interested in whether I liked it or not (I'm sure I would) instead of analyzing whether it was poetry or prose. Now, someone else, a real poet, they'd be the ones to ask about that.

You raise a question that is easy to get caught up in (at least I will if I'm not careful), but maybe a better question would be whether you are the sort of personality who should care if it even matters.

 

[Angeline]

Dear ellabee,
Your predicament is very familiar to me. I never thought of myself as a poet and I still don't think of myself as a poet. I only came over to the poetry side because I noticed there were recurrent complaints about the prose I would submit here; as I slowly began to put the pieces together they seemed to form a finger that pointed towards the Poetic.

I sure will make no claim to knowing anything about poetry or real poetry, because the next stage came when I realized I really didn't care about what made something poetry or prose or, as Angeline coined a while back, prosetry. I know it matters to others. Poetry matters to the real poets, and story matters to the real story writers. I'm best off when it doesn't matter to me. Maybe you're kinda the same.

But if we make something that has words, and we want to share it, and we decide to avail ourselves of this venue, then we have to put it somewhere. If it's less than 750 words we can't put it in Story. For instance. I've long wanted to suggest they have some sort of In-Between category. If we were to meet at a coffee shop or at the kitchen table and you brought your writings for me to read, I would be much more interested in whether I liked it or not (I'm sure I would) instead of analyzing whether it was poetry or prose. Now, someone else, a real poet, they'd be the ones to ask about that.

You raise a question that is easy to get caught up in (at least I will if I'm not careful), but maybe a better question would be whether you are the sort of personality who should care if it even matters.

Stop saying you're not a poet. Everyone else here knows you are. But you are the perfect person here to answer the question this thread raises. Duh, I hadn't thought of it but you are.

I look for things (in my own writing and others') that I think constitutes good poetry, but I also believe you are right, that it's best not to think about whether what you're writing is either genre when you write it. It's all just finding the right words, no matter what you call it in the end.

 

[hmmnmm]

Stop saying you're not a poet. Everyone else here knows you are. But you are the perfect person here to answer the question this thread raises. Duh, I hadn't thought of it but you are.

I look for things (in my own writing and others') that I think constitutes good poetry, but I also believe you are right, that it's best not to think about whether what you're writing is either genre when you write it. It's all just finding the right words, no matter what you call it in the end.

Well I think the key difference is in the intent. You're right, because I couldn't help but remember when I first dipped my toes in this pool. Ellabee did not pop in and express interest in studying or trying to write poetry specifically. She's got something she wrote (I assume ella is a she, apologies if not) that others are saying is more poetry than story, so she's coming to the poets. Very similar to my case. Poetry itself was never a high-priority interest, but after the recurrent compliments and complaints began to add up, I did much like ella. I wasn't like, "Hi, I wanna try to write poetry." More like, "Hi, I think I've been writing poetry poorly disguised as prose... would you call this (insert sample) poetry or somewhat poetic?"

And then comes a secondary focal interest in poetry. Maybe check out a couple library books. Try a few sonnets, haiku, focus on vivid concision, etc. Then you can't stop. So be careful, ellabee.

 

[Angeline]

Well I think the key difference is in the intent. You're right, because I couldn't help but remember when I first dipped my toes in this pool. Ellabee did not pop in and express interest in studying or trying to write poetry specifically. She's got something she wrote (I assume ella is a she, apologies if not) that others are saying is more poetry than story, so she's coming to the poets. Very similar to my case. Poetry itself was never a high-priority interest, but after the recurrent compliments and complaints began to add up, I did much like ella. I wasn't like, "Hi, I wanna try to write poetry." More like, "Hi, I think I've been writing poetry poorly disguised as prose... would you call this (insert sample) poetry or somewhat poetic?"

And then comes a secondary focal interest in poetry. Maybe check out a couple library books. Try a few sonnets, haiku, focus on vivid concision, etc. Then you can't stop. So be careful, ellabee.

Poetry is addictive to the right kind of person, I guess. When I started writing I wasn't thinking exactly about what genre I was trying to write, I just wrote. But I was drawn to poetry as I read it because it's so condensed and (at its best imo) strains language down to images and impressions to the point where your imagination (as a reader) can go to pretty much where you want with it (like jazz!). Most (even good) prose doesn't do that because it's too pedantic and tells you everything you should see, hear, think.

And I still think the appeal of forms is that they train you as a poet because if you're really looking for just the right words and you have to fit them into the spaces and rhythms of forms, you have to work harder and become more disciplined. But overall all the best poems I've ever read have been free verse.

 

[The_Fool]

Poetry is addictive to the right kind of person, I guess. When I started writing I wasn't thinking exactly about what genre I was trying to write, I just wrote. But I was drawn to poetry as I read it because it's so condensed and (at its best imo) strains language down to images and impressions to the point where your imagination (as a reader) can go to pretty much where you want with it (like jazz!). Most (even good) prose doesn't do that because it's too pedantic and tells you everything you should see, hear, think.

And I still think the appeal of forms is that they train you as a poet because if you're really looking for just the right words and you have to fit them into the spaces and rhythms of forms, you have to work harder and become more disciplined. But overall all the best poems I've ever read have been free verse.

as a a man breathes through a horn
natural to a syncopated beat
melding a tone
through a cigarette haze
gin me, baby
let it slide
gin me, baby
let it glide on down my throat
speak easy to me laughter
smell of sweat and weed
smell of sweat and need
there is no sorrow
only blues

 

[ellabee]

I think I like it over here, on this dark side some people call "poetry."

It is strange to think of my writing as poetry because I have never been a particularly poetic person.

That's false.

I used to write poetry in high school. I'd sit in my all-girls Catholic school courtyard, plaid skirt, polo, knee socks, and saddle shoes, with my dog collars and black wristbands and Clash tee shirt (black) under my white shirt, and write angst-ridden verses about being so completely misunderstood...

The poems always rhymed.

I thought I had moved beyond that. Hot damn to me if I didn't.

Thanks for the support. I may float through prosetry for a while before I commit myself to the business of poem writing. But you are such pleasant individuals...I may never leave.

Ella (who is certainly female)

 

[Angeline]

as a a man breathes through a horn
natural to a syncopated beat
melding a tone
through a cigarette haze
gin me, baby
let it slide
gin me, baby
let it glide on down my throat
speak easy to me laughter
smell of sweat and weed
smell of sweat and need
there is no sorrow
only blues

He asked for directions
to Harlem and we got the A train
blaring uptown where everything
is hot and cool, black and blue
ain't nothin but the pain
in your heart. I believe
in gardenias and the slow beads
of sweat crying down ice.
I believe in the crash,
the hi hat tin tintabulation
that swings into a promised land,
a Striver's Row where every
thing is a black and white
photograph. Girls in pastel dresses
sit on the stoop and pianos
scent the air.

I think I like it over here, on this dark side some people call "poetry."

It is strange to think of my writing as poetry because I have never been a particularly poetic person.

That's false.

I used to write poetry in high school. I'd sit in my all-girls Catholic school courtyard, plaid skirt, polo, knee socks, and saddle shoes, with my dog collars and black wristbands and Clash tee shirt (black) under my white shirt, and write angst-ridden verses about being so completely misunderstood...

The poems always rhymed.

I thought I had moved beyond that. Hot damn to me if I didn't.

Thanks for the support. I may float through prosetry for a while before I commit myself to the business of poem writing. But you are such pleasant individuals...I may never leave.

Ella (who is certainly female)

Stick around and write if you feel like it. This is a good place.

 

[lorencino]

A possible definition

Perhaps this may be used as a measure of whether something is a poem or not.

If the summary
is longer than the original being summarized,
the original must be a poem.

 

[champagne1982]

as a a man breathes through a horn
natural to a syncopated beat
melding a tone
through a cigarette haze
gin me, baby
let it slide
gin me, baby
let it glide on down my throat
speak easy to me laughter
smell of sweat and weed
smell of sweat and need
there is no sorrow
only blues

He asked for directions
to Harlem and we got the A train
blaring uptown where everything
is hot and cool, black and blue
ain't nothin but the pain
in your heart. I believe
in gardenias and the slow beads
of sweat crying down ice.
I believe in the crash,
the hi hat tin tintabulation
that swings into a promised land,
a Striver's Row where every
thing is a black and white
photograph. Girls in pastel dresses
sit on the stoop and pianos
scent the air.

Smoke and weed, pastel girls
flowery eau de besoin wafting from secret
channels. Nostrils open and seek
poetry. Lyrics to a song only hearts
hear, but now, climb under the table
and kneel to find that music slipped
and slid through lips pursed. Blow darling.

 

[Tzara]

Perhaps this may be used as a measure of whether something is a poem or not.

If the summary
is longer than the original being summarized,
the original must be a poem.

I don't know that compression per se defines poetry. Surely Milton's Paradise Lost and Byron's Don Juan are poetry? Eliot's The Waste Land? None of these is especially short, and I'm sure any of them could be summarized in fewer words than the original poem. (Begging the question, of course, as to what qualifies as an adequate summary.)

Or take mathematics and physics. F=ma or E=mc² make extremely compressed statements that can be seen as both profoundly insightful and quite beautiful, but require significant explanation to "summarize" them.

I know. That last is kind of cheating, but still.

Certain styles of poetry particularly value brevity of expression—haiku, for example. Other forms do not, particularly narrative or epic forms.

So I think it depends.

 

[Tzara]

Poetry is addictive to the right kind of person, I guess. When I started writing I wasn't thinking exactly about what genre I was trying to write, I just wrote. But I was drawn to poetry as I read it because it's so condensed and (at its best imo) strains language down to images and impressions to the point where your imagination (as a reader) can go to pretty much where you want with it (like jazz!). Most (even good) prose doesn't do that because it's too pedantic and tells you everything you should see, hear, think.

And I still think the appeal of forms is that they train you as a poet because if you're really looking for just the right words and you have to fit them into the spaces and rhythms of forms, you have to work harder and become more disciplined. But overall all the best poems I've ever read have been free verse.

Not to be obnoxious (well, perhaps, a little bit) I think, m'dear, you are misremembering some, unless you've changed your mind about thinking this was one of your favorite poems, since it is clearly form. (Rhymed abcbdd, with alternating 4 and 3 beat lines, as I read it.)

If you mean, as our mutual friend TRM does, contemporary poetry, you have a better case though even there form creeps in, much more than he ever would admit, even among prominent contemporary poets. He and I both greatly admire Kim Addonizio, for example, and the title poem of her latest book is a variant on an English sonnet (Lucifer at the Starlite).

I agree that forms are great for training, but I also think there are times that form is the best way to express something as well. Some poets are better at it than others, and some quite talented poets are (or probably would be, if they ever tried form) very bad at it. I can't, for example, imagine DeepAsleep writing form poems, and he is a completely brilliant poet. He probably could, because he's a very, very good writer, but it wouldn't really be him—his voice—if he did.

The most common theme in definitions of poetry that I've seen talks about image, but I would argue that even that isn't inclusive enough, because of the importance of sound. Even there, not all poetry is particularly focused on sound, either (I'll, perhaps stupidly, cite haiku again, which I think is more about pure imagery).

At some point any distinction between poetry and prose isn't terribly meaningful. What's much more important is whether the writing is good or not.

 

[butters]

I have a story for discussion at the Story Discussion Circle, and one of the comments was, "are you sure this isn't poetry?"

Which made me realize that I'm honestly not sure it isn't.

The piece is 800 words. 16 50-word stories that (were meant to, anyway) work as individual bits as well as a cohesive piece.

Is that poetry? Or prose?

A sample from the non-erotic bits:

Discussion

He promised we would talk.

We concentrate on the street instead of each other.

Thin, translucent smoke curls into the crisp air. His menthol is smooth and cool, like autumn. My clove is spicy-sweet; my lips taste like cinnamon.

The clove crackles with each drag.

I never did like silence.


And one from the erotic...:

Culmination

He is nervous. He trembles as he strips. Shirt, pants, gray furry hat, socks. His beautiful debris litters my carpet.

We fumble in the dark.

I find a condom. He finds my cunt.

I can feel his heart beating through his cock.

He grunts. Seven minutes.

It’s been a while.


Any insight to the difference between poetry and prose as it stands would be much appreciated.

Ella

I'd say you have definite poetic elements running throughout, the second piece could stand as a poem with a little tinkering. The first is in a halfway house, imo - not yet a poem but intended to be. I wouldn't necessarily call these poetic-prose either, not having read the entire series but - for me, - poetic prose is prose written in a more florid style, or a style that pays great attention to the beauty of words, their sounds, how they feel in your mouth. Here you have a paring back of language, an opening of images for the reader to develop in their own way.

as others here are saying, write what you have to write. worry about definitions afterwards and then see if you need to adjust to make them fill any specific criteria. With poetry, sometimes you write down what you want to say - then write it again the way you want to say it. And I do believe poetry generally allows far more input from the reader to create a complete piece (and every read is a new poem), inviting speculation, savouring. Prose, on the other hand, seems to be more about directing the reader in a far more controlled manner - getting the reader from A to B being the main drive behind it, permitting few opportunities to branch off into reverie, and then only down paths the author has prepared and which lead back to the main road. Poetry embraces that natural bent in a reader to look at it from different angles, tasting the nuances, wondering about the intent, delighting in the choice of specific words.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do, and for what it's worth I see a poet underneath the wrappings here.