Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-1272640-20170122002623/@comment-1272640-20170122062744

SOTO wrote: Before really giving my answer, I am going to take a step back and say that, yes, in technical (and literary/academic) usage, "prose" and "poetry" are two different things. But is POETRY (as prefix) necessary and distinct from PROSE (again, as prefix)? We use PROSE not to really mean "prose", as such, as a precise literary medium, but rather to refer to non-comic-based literature in general.

And with regards to this "poetry", it's a stretch to call anything DWU (and valid) pure poetry. 'Cause if it doesn't have a narrative, it's not valid, and if it does, it's simply a short story in some sort of a rhythm or metric style. So this "poetry", while not prose as can be made distinct from poetry, might still be PROSE.

In the TARDIS: Christmas Day, for example, has a narrative, and is thus rightly a short story (not to mention its very inclusion in a Short Trips anthology). With regards to content, it is very much a short story. It's only in form that it's in any way distinct from other stories of its length.

Just because the short story Lonely is all in the form of chat room communication, does not mean we'll make CROOM or CHAT just because it deviates in form from standard prose. And I'd say the same applies here. Poetic or otherwise, anything in literary (that is, written) form which has a narrative is either a novel or a short story, and is therefore PROSE. What about The Eight Doctors of Christmas or The Feast of Seven...Eight (and Nine)?