Question

Why is “The Railroad Earth” considered both poetry and prose?
It contains poetic elements but is much longer than typical poetry.
It is conventional in structure but has the detailed descriptions characteristic of poetry.
It is a flowing narrative that has poetic rhythm but no line breaks.
It contains internal rhyme schemes but uses them to describe a nonfiction story.

Answer 1

Because its language and techniques are poetic while its shape is prose. In other words, it’s a prose poem: a paragraph (no line breaks) that uses imagery, metaphor, rhythm, repetition and compact diction you’d normally call “poetic.”

Of your choices:
- The third item (“a flowing narrative that has poetic rhythm but no line breaks”) is the best description.
- The first is partially true (it can be longer than a short lyric), but length alone doesn’t make prose vs. poetry.
- The second is misleading: its structure is prose-like, but it isn’t merely “conventional” prose with a few descriptions — the descriptive density and sound patterns are intentionally poetic.
- The fourth is too specific: internal rhyme may appear, but that alone doesn’t explain why the piece is both poetry and prose.

So critics call it both because form = prose, technique = poetry.