In Defense of Poetry and Art

Is haiku a poem?  Can prose be poetic? Isn't poetry a condensed version of a dream, where every word matters and the writer hits "enter" well before the right marginal break? And what's so bad about prose? Great leaders speak poetically, writing speeches like "I have a dream" that are shortened and shaped just to make a condensed poem that moved a race. And you can still sit there and tell me those beautiful words were not poetry? 

Aren't there artists who paint with rounded undular lines, in vivid and chaotic strokes, in studies of black and white.
And what of those who craft with pen, ruler and compass, whose every line is drawn in perpendicular harmony and precision is perfectly stressed.  And you can still sit there and tell me only one of these styles proves mastery?

Perhaps the formophobes are like Vincent VanGogh and the prose-ophobes, Frank Lloyd Wright.  But who among us can honestly judge which is wrong and which is right? If we believe that both are artists, why on Earth must we sit here and fight?

Okay folks, the above IS prose.  It goes from left to right margins.  Period.
The "poem" below has meter and rhyme,
but there is not one word out of line
from what you just read above. (in other words, I changed absolutely nothing except line breaks.



Is haiku a poem?  Can prose be poetic?
Isn't poetry a condensed version of a dream,
where every word matters and the writer hits "enter"
well before the right marginal seam?
And what's so bad about prose?
Great leaders speak poetically, writing
speeches like "I have a dream"
that are shortened and designed
to be a poem that ignited a country, a race.

And you can still sit there and tell me
that beautiful speech was not poetry? 

Aren't there artists who paint
with rounded undular lines,
in vivid and chaotic strokes,
in studies of black and white.
And what of those who craft
with pen, ruler and compass,
whose every line is drawn
in parallel lines, tightly harnessed,
and precision is perfectly spaced.

And you can still sit there and tell me
only one of these styles proves mastery?

Perhaps the formophobes
are like Vincent VanGogh
and the prose-ophobes,
Frank Lloyd Wright. 
But who among us 
can honestly judge
which is wrong and which is right?
If we believe that both are artists,
why on Earth must we sit here and fight?



So, did I make a point or not?  Honestly, I'm not defending one or the other, but rather the notion that both are poetry and poetry, like the rainbow, is made up of far more shades than ROYGBIV.

And, to be my own devil's advocate, here's the junk poem that shows what I have seen so often in literary magazines that I do not get, and generally I am quite forgiving of free form poetry.  I will take a portion of the above poem (or prose) to demonstrate.

Aren't there artists
who paint with
rounded
u
  n
  d
u
l
a
  r
lines,
in vivid and
c    h  a o    t i  c  strokes,
in studies of black    and    white?

And what
of those
who
craft with pen,
r
u
l
e
r and
compass,
whose every line

is drawn in parallel_lines_tightly_harnessed,
and      precision    is        perfectly      spaced.

And you
can still

sit there

and tell me
o
n
l
y

o
n
e

of these styles
proves
m
  a
    s
      t
      e
        r
          y 
            ?