POETRY & PROSE

Recognizing Key Differences (and Similarities) Between Poetry and Prose

Understanding prose vs. poetry can be a bit murky, because both prose and poetry are a form of
creative writing. However, each different type of writing has a unique structure and purpose. Learn
the similarities and differences between prose and poetry through a cumulative overview of each.

Understanding Prose vs. Poetry

Literature is creative writing in one form or another. Both prose and poetry are forms of literature
that present a point to an audience, and both take some skill. Additionally, both prose and poetry
use descriptive language like literary devices. However, that’s typically where the similarities
between these two forms of writing end. To see how each type is unique, it’s helpful to break them
down into their definitions and examples.

What Is Prose?

In the simplest terms, prose is everyday writing. It covers all the different types of writing you read
daily, from blogs to articles to novels. Prose might be a fictional novel taking you away to a far-off
planet, or it could be a non-fictional news article covering the latest natural disaster. It can also be a
verbal story.

Within prose, the writing structure includes sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. Additional
qualities woven within the text include theme, mood, point-of-view, plot, setting, etc.

There are 4 common types of prose:

 Fictional prose takes you away to a made-up world or story such as The Hunger Games.

 Non-fictional prose is factual accounts of events such as Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young
Girl.

 Heroic prose includes oral and written traditions like fables and legends.

 Poetic prose is writing with poetic qualities, such as heightened emotions and imagery, that
is not written in verse. One example is Amy Lowell’s Bath.

Definition of Poetry

While prose is writing, poetry adds artistic style to writing. Poetry is all about vivid imagery and
rhythm. It works to make you feel something or drive a point home. Poetry writers select their
structure, rhyme scheme, pattern, and words with the purpose of arousing emotion.

Rather than sentences and paragraphs, poetry uses lines, stanzas, verses, meter, stress, patterns,
and rhythm. It offers an artistic way to present emotions and events.

Poetry comes in several different forms, but the common types of poetry include:

 Sonnets - lyrical poetry with a 14-line arrangement

 Acrostic - mixes letters and phrases

 Free verse - no set meter

 Epic - from oral traditions

 Rhymed - creates specific rhyme pattern

 Descriptive - uses descriptive language to express a message

 Narrative - tells a story

Prose vs. Poetry Examples

The real proof of prose vs. poetry is in the examples. When you look at examples of prose and poetry
side-by-side, their structural differences come to light. To view apples-to-apples, check out a prose
poem vs. a sonnet.

Example :

POEM - Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost :

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

In this Frost poem, the structure is much different. The lines of the poem follow the AB rhyme
scheme throughout. Additionally, each line begins with a capital letter regardless of whether it is
starting a new sentence.

Difference Between Prose and Poetry

Once you see a prose and poem together, it is easier to see the difference. Just to make sure
everything is clear, this table offers a useful guide.
Prose Poetry

Written in sentences and paragraphs Written in lines and stanzas

Normal language patterns Artistic language to express thoughts and emotions

No limit on words Word limits

Doesn’t use a rhyme scheme or rhythm Can include rhyme and rhythm

Easy to understand Can take dissecting the words to understand the meaning

May or may not be used creatively Used creatively and artistically

Similarities and Differences between Poetry and Prose

Since poetry and prose are forms of literature, they have a few similarities like being used creatively
and having different types. However, when it comes to their structure and purpose, they are quite
different.

Comparison Chart

BASIS FOR
PROSE POETRY
COMPARISON

Meaning Prose is a straight forward form of Poetry is that form of literature in which
literature, wherein the author expresses the poet uses a unique style and rhythm,
his thoughts and feelings in a lucid way to express intense experience.

Language Straight Forward Expressive or Decorated

Nature Pragmatic Imaginative

Essence Message or information Experience

Purpose To provide information or to convey a To delight or amuse.

Ideas Ideas can be found in sentences, which Ideas can be found in lines, which are
are arranged in paragraph. arranged in stanzas.
BASIS FOR
PROSE POETRY
COMPARISON

Line break No Yes

Paraphrasing Possible Exact paraphrasing is not possible.