Blimix

I was in a room full of writers when one asked, "What makes this poetry, as opposed to prose with line breaks? If you just made this a paragraph, wouldn't it be prose?" The discussion quickly turned to, "What makes something poetry?" Nobody seemed to know. I surprised myself by feeling as though I had an answer. (While I could disclaim about my lack of formal instruction in poetry, even the professor had no answer. So I might as well contribute mine.)

By an odd coincidence, I had tried to look this up not too long before, and had found only tendencies, such as toward flowery language and metaphor, with which to identify poetry. I also knew that one could signify poetry through word usages that don't often appear in prose. (e.g., "myriad" is usually used as a noun in prose and as an adjective in poetry.)

But suddenly, I felt that I had it: Poetry breaks the rules. In particular, it breaks linguistic rules in such a way that the reader or listener is aware that the poet knows the rules, and is not merely making mistakes. "Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist."

Arbitrary line breaks hardly qualify as artistry, but do constitute a deliberate breaking of the rules. So they signify poetry, but provide no value on their own.

Calling something "azure" instead of "blue" seems to violate a simple rule of communication: Don't substitute a more obscure word unless the substitution provides some utility, such as clarity or efficiency. So "azure" signifies poetry (unless you're using it as heraldry jargon).

At first glance, this definition appears to be only half of the picture. I could rationalize the inclusion of rhyme, meter, and alliteration under this explanation as "no reason to do this except that it's pretty," but that would be debatable, since "pretty" is a good reason, so maybe these don't break any rules.

Similarly, clever metaphors amuse the audience. ("Laughter is the sound of connections being made.") The utility of flowery language, when artfully* employed, probably falls somewhere between "clever" and "pretty," still provoking pleasure.

* The unnecessary use of big words is poorly received: The speaker gives the impression of attempting to show off their erudition, rather than exhibiting genuine fluency. I suspect that something similar is true of the use of flowery language that is poorly constructed.

Pleasing language in paragraph form, breaking no rules at all, is regarded as entertaining prose. (If, by some great effort, it contained much in the way of rhyme, meter, or alliteration, while still breaking no rules, this might cause cognitive dissonance.) Writing that breaks rules without pleasing is identifiable as poetry, but leaves the reader wondering at its purpose, or, less generously, at the skill of the author.

Because the common devices of poetry (rhyme, meter, alliteration, flowery language, metaphor, et alia) do not change whether something is regarded as prose or poetry, I am led to the conclusion that, important as they are, they are irrelevant to a definition of poetry. We can rely solely on the deliberate breaking of rules for that.

(My wife points out that I cannot apply this logic to ancient, oral poetry, as I do not know whether it broke the rules for non-poetic language. I suppose, for the same reason, that I cannot apply it to poetry in any modern language which I do not speak. While I expect that the concept of "paragraph" does not apply to purely oral traditions, one might reasonably substitute for it "just talking," to describe speech that does not deliberately violate linguistic rules.)

I've just compiled many of the short bits that I enjoyed writing while supporting folks in the writing class. Possibly self-indulgent, but hey, there are double dactyls, twist endings, and a limerick about Tim Minchin.