prose


 * Definition:**

One of the major divisions of genre, prose refers to fiction and nonfiction, including all its forms, because they are written in ordinary language and most closely resemble everyday speech. Technically, anything that isn't poetry or drama is prose. Therefore, all passages in the AP language exam are prose. Of course, prose writers often borrow poetic and dramatic elements.
 * Examples:**

A Port is a delightful place of rest for a soul weary of life's battles. The vastness of the sky, the mobile architecture of the clouds, the changing coloration of the sea, the twinkling of the lights, are a prism marvellously fit to amuse the eyes without ever tiring them. The slender shapes of the ships with their complicated rigging, to which the surge lends harmonious oscillations, serve to sustain within the soul the taste for rhythm and beauty. Also, and above all, for the man who of mysterious and aristocratic pleasure in contemplating, while lying on the belvedere or resting his elbows on the jetty-head, all these movements of men who are leaving and men who are returning, of those who still have the strength to will, the desire to travel or to enrich themselves.

http://pw2.netcom.com/~pprater/prosepoetry.html#examples


 * Russell Edson**

THE GOLDILOCKS COMPULSION
http://www.webdelsol.com/tpp/t-su97re.htm
 * An old man wearing a wig made of yellow yarn is eating porridge as he waits for the three bears to come home. He knows they will punish him. And why not? Hasn't he earned it? He wonders if the papa bear will simply give him a good spanking? He's certainly earned it.  Perhaps they'll make a meal of him. Bears are omnivorous. Whatever they decide is okay with him.  Perhaps they'll keep him as a love slave. That's okay, too. It's their right. Good Lord, if he's nothing else, he's certainly a fair-minded old man.  And so he waited for the three bears with an almost unbearable excitement . ||

Prose Poem by Larry Levis** Toad, hog, assassin, mirror. Some of its favorite words, which are breath. Or handwriting: the long tail of the ‘y’ disappearing into a barn like a rodent’s, and suddenly it is winter after all. After all what? After the ponds dry up in mid-August and the children drop pins down each canyon and listen for an echo. http://www.types-of-poetry.org.uk/91-prose.htm
 * Toad, hog, assassin, mirror

I. Torres C. Koreerat B. Ramirez A. Fausto D. Atwood J. Crowley