an interview with Brian Bartlett

CV2: What would you say is more "true" about poetry than other forms of writing?

Each time I coach a poetry workshop, I start with a questionnaire that includes the hairy question "How is poetry different from prose?" Part of the point of the question, and of going over everyone's answers to it, is to show how all definitions of poetry are incomplete, and how much the borders between poetry and prose blur. Sometimes I've been tempted to say that, once you've discussed things like concentration, economy, rhythm, music, and unparaphraseability, the most useful (and banal) distinction is that poetry uses the line as prose doesn't—but then there are so-called prose poems, which seem to destroy that distinction. And surely the line isn't the be-all-or-the-end-all of poetry, if some of those other characteristics aren't very present. The best prose of someone like Loren Eiseley shows more "concentration, economy," etc., than most of his poems, even if the latter are divided into lines.

In the end, we're talking about labels, and in reading an individual piece, how much does it matter what label we give it? But if I had to give an answer to your question that wasn't endlessly qualified, I'd say that poetry gives a higher proportion of compact, surprising phrasing, excited rhythmical changes, metaphorical freshness, unparaphraseability, and sonic interest (sounds in concert together) than prose does. But in that sense, some examples of fiction or non-fiction prose are more "poetic" than some examples of works labeled poetry.