Which Has Greater Power to Express Love & Emotions — Poetry or Prose?

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Poetry is commonly used as a writing choice for people wanting to express love and emotion. It’s a common gift to give to someone for Valentine’s Day as a way to convey feelings for another person.

I have to admit, I’m not a fan of poetry.

I hated studying it in school and hated it even more when were supposed to write it. I would look at a poem we were studying and hear people going on about what the poem said and I’d be like… those words aren’t there, that’s you guessing what might have been in the mind of the writer.

I guess that has likely left me with a bit of a blind spot when it comes to poetry. I came across a writing prompt today suggesting I should write about the role poetry has in expressing love and emotions.

Hmmm, I thought. Maybe I should explore that question and see how it stacks up against prose. Maybe those who use poetry like the short form method over having to think through writing something in prose.

Writing Expressions of Love and Emotions

To establish a bit of a baseline, I first propose the question: What are the most powerful expressions of love and emotions to write?