a limerick poem about this thread

so I'm in this thread about poetry
**** nothing rhymes with poetry

thats not even a limerick

I abandoned it after the second line

Everyone,

I know we've not had a chance to get the FAQ and everything up just yet, as this area is still a few hours old, but allow me to offer some clarification:

This area is the actual submission of creative works and not just an off-topic discussion on certain subjects. If you have poetry that you've written that you'd like to share, by all means start a thread for it so that others may comment and/or critique it. But as far as general banter, that still belongs in the Off-Topic Room.

There is in fact a Poetry Thread already created which can be found HERE

Thanks,

~Sapper

I don't think this was meant to be a discussion thread. Judging by:



this thread is for sharing poetry

I thought it was obvious that users were supposed to post their own content here, (drawings, stories, poetry or music the list goes ON) presumably the type of thing this subforum is for (or if it isn't, why is it here)

how about "grow a tree"

well to be honest the limerick has a certain irony to it

because I couldn't complete it

I substituted real humor for irony

just like alex would have wanted

i always thought prose and poetry were different

This is the last poem I wrote, at the end of summer. I've been novel-writing, so I haven't had time to see if this is something I could develop into a poetry manuscript:

then explain to me why the previous two entries are "poems"

Just curious, if you had to hazard a guess, what would you say?

if i knew why would i ask

they look and read like prose

the only thing vaguely poetic is the way door formatted his

This comes across as dickish. Seriously, is it too much for you to, as I said, "hazard a guess?" It isn't. I spent almost a decade studying this stuff, and honestly wanted to hear what you thought so a) I could properly answer you and b) get a perspective on people who haven't invested large portions of their lives on the difference between prose, poetry, and prose poetry. If you want to have a discussion, have one, don't be all passive aggressive about it.

Anyway.

Poetry and prose are generally divided by the fact that poetry has line breaks and prose doesn't. The narrative versions of prose and poetry can both read similarly, especially when you're comparing narrative poets to prose writers, because the driving force behind the content is the narrator which means it's either a) delivered in a linear format, with a beginning, middle, and end, like my piece, or b) it's entirely voice-driven like door's.

This doesn't mean a narrative poem functions the same without its line breaks, and this is where the idea that "poetry is prose with line breaks" falls apart. In essence, the line break of a poem is a precipitate of the line's functionality--isolating a fragment of content in order to augment that content. I know that sounds obtuse, so here's an example: any of Pablo Neruda's odes are fragmented into these tiny, bite-sized lines, generally isolating nouns or flourishes of description. These smaller lines force the reader to slow down and really appreciate each line, savor it, creating a specific and measured pacing controlled by Nerdua's language. Larger lines are read faster--a musical analogy here would be something like rubato, where a piece is conducted along several tempos, making certain bars heavier and others lighter.

As a way to control these units of words--these lines--poetry is very, very economical in its selection of words, often choosing sparseness over exposition and purple prose. But it gains a lot of freedom in doing so--a steep line break could represent a pause in someone's speech, whereas prose would have to use an ellipses or an m-dash; a long line can add weight to a sudden short line; a measurement of equal syllables across a quatrain can metaphorically mimic speech; etc. It also creates an element of abstraction to pieces that prose lack, sometimes exhibited in the very sparseness of the language being employed--like how in paneled comics you see one still frame, then the next frame something's changed and you post-assemble the narrative between the frames without actually seeing it. Prose can't do this, in general.

My piece is a form called prose poetry, which is usually considered poetry, and tries to borrow the form of prose while measuring itself out like poetry, but without the lines. It's basically a wolf (poetry) in sheep's clothing (prose), as it's still measured and economical, but it eschews linebreaks for long, uninterrupted lines, creating a piece intended to be read as a whole or in large chunks. It's a format created by Baudelaire and Poe and Whitman as a reaction to reject the line, but it's expanded into a form of its own... sort of like the cronut of poetry.

it comes across as dickish to ask me to guess about something i obviously know nothing about

thank you for your explanation

edit: also i dont want to have a discussion because a) i feel im completely unqualified to partake and b) i dont even like poetry that much

It is dickish to
precisely no one to ask
someone's opinion.

>:)

im a dick
youre a dick
shes a dick
hes a dick

i love dick

and now you've discovered poetry!

id make a good poet if i didnt absolutely loathe writing creatively

I find it unfortunate that I know a lot of people that would be stellar writers if they only actually liked writing. Because I definitely feel a lot of the people who like writing, for readers' sakes, shouldn't.

Hey, look on the bright side. I suck at writing AND I'm too lazy to write.