My understanding is that art is creating something from nothing. We cannot create raw materials like rock, clay, the colors derived from the existing minerals of earth. The wood of a cello or the copper and zinc used to make the brass of a tuba all existed before our birth.  Matter precedes us. Our brains consist of it in the form of grey matter.  We use what already exists knowing that we did not create it. We can only mold clay, chisel stone, use our vocal chords, finger the strings, think a thought to write. Doesn’t that then make humans designers instead? Might it be more accurate to describe art as designing a new form?

Musicians, painters, actors, singers and sculptors all use instruments to design. A violin, paint and brush, the human body and voice, or a chisel are a few examples that come to mind. When it comes to writing, words are the instruments. The form that these words take vary. They can constitute a song or a sonnet, a novel or play. There are rules to most of these forms. Classic poem structure of the Greeks and Romans(Latin), for example, use dactylic hexameter(six stressed syllables). A sonnet is a fourteen line poem traditionally written in iambic pentameter. Haikus are typically composed of three lines with a 5-7-5 syllable pattern. Ballads use four to eight line stanzas with rhyming patterns. There are more examples but I hope I haven’t lost you yet. This brings us to free verse literature often credited to Walt Whitman, where there aren’t any concrete rules. Free verse may have nonmetrical nonrhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech. Or not. It is, however, still considered verse.

Prose, on the other hand, is what readers recognize when reading a novel. Conversational speech doesn’t conform to rhythmical patterns or to discrete line breaks. Novels are primarily written in prose, without a metrical structure or rhyme. Fiction in dramas, fantasy, mystery, romance are made to immerse the reader. There may or may not be poetic lines in prose but the imagination is still activated.

I am fully aware that there are different levels of readers. I am not a scholar or high end academic. I wrote the following to be instructive to those who may not have a background in all things literary. I certainly do not profess to be an expert in this field. I write verse and I write prose. I don’t claim to be a poet but I would be blessed if any of my written works contain the art of poetry. Being a successful poet is a daunting task. Poverty is often the end result. Why so many have decided to make it a vocation is anyone’s guess.