4 ms·

This "poem" is depressing. Off topic: It's never made sense to me why people call things that don't rhyme "poems." As far as I'm concerned, this is an essay,

• Stratoscope 14y ago
  It's a type of poetry called "free verse". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_verse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_verse http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-free-verse-poems.html http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-free-verse-po... Here is the classic story of a Real Programmer, written in free verse: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html This story was originally written in prose, and it apparently got converted to free verse more or less by accident as it was bounced around mailing lists. Here's the prose version: http://www.pbm.com//~lindahl/mel.html http://www.pbm.com//~lindahl/mel.html HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678999
  • Stratoscope 14y ago
    Another way to put it, I suppose you could say, is that the difference between prose and free verse is the number of lines.
    • cema 14y ago
      Not the number, more like the form, but in general the difference between poetry and, uh, prose is something I do not quite understand.
      • Stratoscope 14y ago
        > Not the number, > more like the form, Now that's a great start! I wonder if the art is knowing when to go on until your breath runs out, and when to keep it short.
    • deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
  • csense 13y ago
    Free verse seems silly and pointless. So I wrote a trivial program to turn prose into free verse: import random def poem(text, p_break=0.5, seed=1234): rand = random.Random(seed) result = [] for w in text.split(): result.append(w) if rand.uniform(0.0, 1.0) < p_break: result.append('\n') else: result.append(' ') return "".join(result) print poem("This is a poem written by a program. It is not really a poem because it does not rhyme, it is some weird thing called free verse, which is a poem that does not rhyme.", p_break=0.1) Here's the output: This is a poem written by a program. It is not really a poem because it does not rhyme, it is some weird thing called free verse, which is a poem that does not rhyme.
    • JonnieCache 13y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scansion#Elements http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scansion#Elements
• sp332 14y ago
  Most poems in the world don't rhyme. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhyming#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhyming#History This one uses a repeated structure instead of repeated sounds.
• deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
• barry-cotter 14y ago
  If how it sounds is as important when read out as the information content it's poetry. Even if you disregard free verse that isn't all poetry. The Norse skaldic tradition is amazing and they were much more into assonance than rhyme. Think rap but without a backing track. http://www.okcupid.com/profile/Hibernian/journal?cf=profile http://www.okcupid.com/profile/Hibernian/journal?cf=profile Is this poetry?
• Stratoscope 14y ago
  Poetics aside, I have to agree with you about how the poem is a very sad story. My explorations in free verse elsewhere in the thread may be a way to cover up my tears. My daughter is very bright, but when she was in grade school she'd sometimes have trouble with a homework problem because the textbook didn't explain a concept clearly. So I'd tell her how I've always found it helpful to read multiple sources on a topic. If one of them doesn't click with the way I think, another one probably will. And just reading multiple references that explain things differently helps reinforce the concepts. She wanted nothing to do with it! She only wanted to hear about the way "they" explained it - the textbook, the teacher, the school - the right way to do it. Nothing else. I guess I wish she'd gotten a teacher like the one at the end of that story, early on.
  • snowman41 14y ago
    That is depressing.
• brazzy 14y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre_(poetry) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre_(poetry)