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Prose and Poetry: Just How Similar are They?

It feels almost mandatory to insert some sort of greeting or preface on my first blog post, so here it goes. My name is Connor Morley, and I'm a freshman at the Post Oak Montessori High School. My various passions include running, science, and pretty much anything nerdy and/or geeky.

This week in ELA (English and Language Arts) we discussed poetry and how it can be variously interpreted. A topic in our key lesson was prose vs. poetry, but more specifically, how prose and poetry can be separated and intertwined. 

The basic definition of poetry is language that is generally visual and symbolic, often full of metaphorical and non-literal speech. However, what truly sets poetry apart is its use of rhythm and meter (beat). Prose, on the other hand, is speech that uses traditional English grammatical flow and conventions. Examples of prose include everyday speech, most novels, and informational articles.

When prose crosses with poetry, things become a little more muddled. In prose poetry, the rhythm is in fact general sentence flow, however it can still be distinguished as poetry in that, like poetry, prose will use short, condensed sentences and vivid imagery as well as non-literal language in the vein of traditional poetry.
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  1. HunterSeptember 14, 2016 at 7:08 PM

    I think you got the distinction between poetry and prose across very well. The only revision I might suggest is grammatical: I think after the word "speech" in paragraph 3 sentence 1, you should start a new sentence instead of typing a dash.

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