Prose is ordinary written language and is used for both fiction and nonfiction.
Poetry uses rhythm, sound, and figurative language to evoke an emotional response. Here is an example.
Chapters can divide prose into meaningful sections. Paragraphs are used to divide prose into smaller chunks of meaning. Page numbers are most commonly used to identify the location of a quote in the text.
Poetry is organized by lines and stanzas (groups of lines). The poem above consists of 8 lines divided into 4 stanzas.
Line breaks and stanza breaks are indicated when quoting from a poem. Slashes indicate line breaks and double slashes indicate stanza breaks. For example, the beginning of the above poem would be quoted like this: "so much depends / upon // a red wheel / barrow" (Williams 1-4). Note that the line numbers go in the in-text citation.
Titles of long works of prose (books) are italicized while titles of short works of prose (short stories, articles, chapters) go in quotation marks.
Since poems are short, their titles go in quotes: "The Red Wheelbarrow." The only exception is epic poems, which are long narrative poems such as The Odyssey or Beowulf. Their titles go in italics.
The writer of a book, story, or article is an author.
The voice or perspective in prose is the narrator. (The author is not the same as the narrator. For example, in The House on Mango Street, the narrator, Esperanza, wants bums in her attic; the author may not.)
The writer of a poem is the poet.
The voice or perspective in poetry is the speaker. The speaker is not the same as the poet. Don’t assume that poems are always about the poet’s life. For example, in the poem “I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -,” the speaker describes the room around her as she takes her final breaths. The poet, Emily Dickinson, is not the one dying in the room.