What makes poetry special, if it is special? that is, how is it different from other forms of language such as everyday speech, fiction, nonfiction in print, the dialogue in a play, or the wording used in advertisements? is the language in one genre of poetry more like that of another genre or more like language that you find outside of poetry? think about one or more ways people use language, and compare it to the language you find in poetry. discuss why language seems to take different forms, or why it makes sense to categorize it by form, situation, medium, purpose, and audience, for example.

Poetry is special because it presents a language that is distinctly opposed to the regular, everyday, conversational language whose only purpose is communication. Even when it is modern, free-verse poetry, it is detached from the "common" use of language because it is always highly deliberate, measured according to its inner structure, determined by the rules (or even by the lack thereof). In a speech, fiction, nonfiction in print, or play, language has a certain function - to convey a message, to achieve a purpose, to engage a reader to do something, to inform. Poetry can have any of these functions, and much more, as it always creates a separate world where every letter, word, line, stanza, or any other form has an internal artistic role within the whole.

Language is very flexible, and poetry shows this perhaps better than any other form of writing. You can write a sonnet with a mathematically firm structure and precise rhythm, or write a free-verse poem without punctuation and capital letters - it can bear any burden that you decide to lay upon it. It is the most liberal and the most constrained art form, at the same time.

The answer would be b.