I realized something today that I’ve refound an appreciation that schooling had taken away from me. I always loved philosophy, especially its prolonged meandering arguments. This love introduced me to the first essays I read. Essays were my favorite pieces of writing before high school, but after three years of formulaic headbashing cleverly marketed as “learning the standards”: MLA, thesises, and projected orders have removed the appeal of what I always thought was an incredibly personable, wandering, inclusive type of writing. A well written essay to me hits on major historical and current points relating to the discourse. It shouldn’t aim to be all-inclusive, but rather touch on as many related ideas as maintain the value of the discussion. It certainly shouldn’t be all argument; it should be a one-sided discussion, the inner-voice of the writing as he thinks through a field of concepts.
I’ve been reading more and more essays lately, and they are what led me to these thoughts. They are open, interesting pieces—not dry, formulaic arguments. It led me into thinking about a writer’s style. To me, prose and verse are interchangable in their applications. You can write a really lovely analysis of a period in history with poetry, and a beautiful prose essay about the structure of a flower. And yet, we’ve been taught that poetry is about love and flowers and essays, and really all prose, is the more serious writing. By that I do not mean most people consider prose writers to be more legitament than poets, but in prose more ridgid structures are assumed—less creativity is assumed. Why is this?
I think it may have to do with the history of both. Whereas prose has a more important role in fields like political discourse and other “serious” subjects, there have been a lot of weird, unconstrained, and youthful poets in its history. Then again, you can look at what I just wrote there as say, Doesn’t that still say something odd about poetry? Famous poets certainly affect our view of poetry, but there’s something more to it. My best guess about that is the stylistic nature of poetry v. prose. Poetry’s inherent idea of experimentation with language and style is more open. That doesn’t mean, however, that it is more open as a medium for expressing a creative thought.
Slowly, our culture is realizing that—current (“postmodern”) poetry is beginning to reacquire some of its romantic roots (very formulaic at times) and strengthen them and mix them with modern poetry, the pinnacle of the experiment essence of poetry. The New Yorker has some incredible examples of beautifully thought-out essays. Maybe Prose and Verse have something to learn from each other.
