Prose poetry is prose that breaks some of the normal rules of prose discourse for heightened imagery or emotional effect.

As a specific poetic form, prose poetry originated in the 19th century in France. French prose was governed by laws so strict that by breaking them, it was possible to create prose that was seen to be intended as poetry. Poets such as Aloysius Bertrand, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and Stephane Mallarmé were among the founders of the form. The form continued to be practiced in France and found profound expression in the prose poems of Francis Ponge in the mid twentieth century.

It used to be said that prose poetry was impossible in English, because the English language was not so strictly governed by rules as the French was. In the twentieth century, when English prose has become more and more governed by the iron laws of Strunk and White, this may no longer be the case. Rapturous, rhythmical, and image-laden prose from previous centuries, such as is found in Jeremy Taylor or Thomas de Quincey, strikes 21st century readers as having something of a poetic quality.

Links

• Prose Poetry
• Ogdenian Prose Poetry
• Dark Prose Poetry
• "prose-poetry"?
• Prose Poetry
• pith
• Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Where verse is set to music, the distinction between poem and song may become artificial — to the point of being untenable. This is perhaps recognised in the way popular songs have lyrics:. The verse, however, may precede in time the tune (in the way that "Rule Britannia" was set to music, and "And did those feet in ancient time" has become the hymn "Jerusalem"); the tune may be lost over time but the words survive; a number of alternate tunes may fit (this is particularly common with hymns and ballads).

Possible classifications proliferate (under anthem, ballad, blues, carol, folk song, hymn, libretto, lied, lullaby, march, praise song, round, spiritual). Nursery rhymes may be songs, or doggerel: the term doesn't imply a distinction. The ghazal is a sung form that is considered primarily poetic. See rapping, roots of hip hop music also, on the boundaries: verse+music against verse against verse set to music.

Analogously, verse drama might normally be judged (at its best) as poetry, but not consisting of poems. Again there are genres as far apart as masque and pantomime.

Poesybeat is an online collaborative artform whereby participants combine music and poetry together into a new musical style. The authors of the music and the poetry often have never met one another. The premiere site for this style is poesybeat.org, a not-for-profit site that promotes the poesybeat artform.

Link

• 
  poesybeat.org

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.