The Poet Easily Becomes a Good Prose Writer

It has been noticed that the poet easily becomes a good prose writer, while the opposite hardly ever happens. Compared to prose, poetry is so much more difficult that the first seems almost funny to the poet. To compose verses, one must first be in a propitious state of mind, that is, in a state of mind that allows one to concentrate entirely on the composition. Dispersed, the mind does not make poetry. Then, the slowness in composing, the technical difficulties, the large number of elements that must be harmonized in the creation, all this, over time, accustoms the mind to a patience and discipline that, for prose lines, is far beyond what is necessary. One does prose by force; fluid and natural prose. The simple movement of the fingers is enough to stimulate mental creation which, as if by automatism, registers itself as it is being created. How different it is to write poetry! The prose writer who is used to this almost therapeutic ease, if he risks composing verses, will find something very, very different…