A living poem can energise another poem at five hundred years distance, or across the other side of the world. - Michael Schmidt

Prose uses the medium of language whilst poetry serves language and explores it.

Prose and poetry are different in construction. You can lie back and read prose, and you can read it fast. Poetry on the other hand, requires a different kind of attention and concentration … the effect it has on the ear and the imagination.

The reader does not need a technical vocabulary to read poetry, only a voice in the head or out loud which can deliver the sounds.