Which do you find more erotic, poems or prose?

[starryeyedpoet]

For me, there is something so sensual about poetry, you can really have the freedom to play with words in a way you might not able to in prose. Poetry always brings out the beauty of words for me.

 

[butters]

For me, there is something so sensual about poetry, you can really have the freedom to play with words in a way you might not able to in prose. Poetry always brings out the beauty of words for me.

welcome to the Poetry Forums, starryeyedpoet it's always good to see new people drop in to introduce themselves, chat, read, and write. a professional writer? in what capacity, if you'd care to say. if not, that's fine. we're just a curious bunch.

i have found prose that has been deeply sensual, but that was largely due to the poetic nature of its wording, its musicality, descriptions that reached beyond the mechanic and were rather more subtle. but i do believe poetry holds the sensual keys to my heart - that is, well-written poetry. bad poetry is worse than fair prose!

 

[starryeyedpoet]

For some reason, and I am not sure why this is, I can be very, very poetic in poetry using all sorts of visual imagery and metaphor, but when it comes to prose, I am kind of cut and dry and not very flowery. Does anyone else experience this?

 

[bronzeage]

Marshall McLuhan was the one who said, "The medium is the message." What he meant was the message was affected by it was presented. Books, newspapers and television each had a unique effect on the content they presented.

The same is true for prose and poetry. There is a vague line somewhere between the two and it's usually only recognized when it's crossed.

The question in the OP is like one of those Zen paradoxes, "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" There is no inherent reason for poetry to be more erotic than prose, or the other way around. The only real difference in prose and poetry is the strict rules of prose. If these rules are suspended, any piece of prose can be rearranged on the page and a poem is created.

We even have "prose poetry" thread on this forum. I never did figure out if we are for it or against it.

I find poetry much harder to write than prose. I can't imagine writing a 6000 word poem. I suppose, if pushed, a character could write an erotic poem and read it aloud to their lover. This would be a poem within prose.

 

[Angeline]

I agree with Bronze, as there are many different kinds of writing that can be defined as poetry or prose or somewhere in between, not to mention that everyone has their own definition of which is poetry and which is not. And the same is true of erotica, written or otherwise: what turns me on might be a total snooze to someone else and vice versa.

And then we come to what is for me the key issue and that is the the quality of the erotic writing. Most erotica I've read here is mediocre or worse though some is very good. And that's only one person's opinion, so it's hard to generalize and say this or that is best, though I do have my own favorites.

Otoh the right poem or story by the right person at the right time can be very exciting. I actually wrote a poem about that: Bibliobliss. And by the way there are some wonderful erotic poems here by Annaswirls, Lauren Hynde, smithpeter (to name a few) and many others. All are worth exploring. And this has always been one of my favorite erotic stories here because it is both erotic and an interesting, well written story.

Welcome to the poetry forum.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Ange is right about those erotic poems and they're gathered together - along with some pretty tarrnished ones - here for your delectation.