Dear MaryAnn,

Briefly then:

1) In Latin, "I came, I saw, I conquered" is certainly poetic by Latin's own standards (it's an epigram). In like manner, biblical Hebrew poetry (as classically considered) is set apart by parallelism, but biblical Hebrew itself by five factors (among others) that are making scholars rethink the whole question -- and increasingly rule out the idea that biblical Hebrew is (anywhere) to be considered merely prose.

It is fallacious to judge whether poetry in another language is poetry by using the standards of modern English. Very great harm has been done in biblical studies since the 19th century by people reading latter-day Indo-European literary sensibilities into Semitic literature before the latter's mechanics were even fully understood. And I'm rather surprised that you're doing this sort of thing here. You don't read modern English sensibilities into ancient Chinese, Japanese or other non-English poetry. Why are you doing it here?

2) It is my opinion that the distinction between poetic prose and poetry (in your words) is being blurred by the artistic and philosophical poverty of modern poets. No wonder you can't tell the difference between poetic prose and poetry -- those things are largely fixed by contexual definition, and (unless is a throwback like this old parodist) no such definition is being used. The sheer relativism that lies behind modern art of just about every kind makes such distinctions difficult if not impossible to make, because no fixed standards of any kind are being used or adhered to.

Biblical Hebrew, like other ancient poetic languages, does have fixed standards. The lines between poetic prose and poetry (in the 21 Books) are not completely clear to me in it, as yet, but one thing that Biblical Hebrew has is a set of five factors that would define all of it as poetry of one kind or another in any critique worthy of the name. The fine distinctions on the spectrum are useful (and the subject of much study), but in the end not essential if one is a cantor and not just a reader of words. The larger distinction between the spectrum from prose poetry to poetry in the 21 Books and pure poetry in the 3 Books is not sematic only -- it has a concrete and testable basis. It would only be semantic if no fixed standards were in use, as in contemporary English poetry.

Note that some texts in the 21 Books have the same verbal structure as the Psalms do, but a different melodic rendition (e.g., the Song of the Ark in 1 Chronicles 16:7ff). That is one end of the spectrum in the 21 Books: pure verbal poetry. At the other end is prose poetry, such as in Jeremiah 3:6-12. In between are texts such as 3:1-5 and 12-14, which are not as simple as the Psalms or the Song of the Ark. The Song of Songs is closer to the normal structure of Psalms without actually being like the Song of the Ark. And all this just relates to the words -- which is why I prefer taking the texts in their melopoetic senses (as they were meant to be). There are too many categories to classify quickly, and I don't think it can be done at all by the words alone (given that so many have tried and failed).

3) Psalms 24 has striking imagery, imaginative figurative language, and strong expression of religious emotion. But compared to other Psalms, here these verbal matters are understated, and for a very good reason: they are expressed more by the music than by the words. It is a musicological truism that the greater the linguistic content of sung poetry, the lesser the musical content -- and vice versa. This Psalm puts more emphasis on the musical content than many(despite the simplicity of the melodic line itself -- many Psalms are melodically considerably more ornate). Focused on the words as you were, you missed the heart of the Psalm. That illustrates why the Psalms have to be understood as melopoesis, not as either poetry or as song lyrics in our modern sense.

I put this Psalm up so that for once I could speak in my proper field -- the sort of literary and musical conventions that I work with every day. It's valuable to have a different perspective when dealing with questions of "what is poetry".

I'm faring well enough -- thanks for asking! Count it a "wet run" for what I will probably encounter in Israel, beginning on January 1. More on this later.

Best wishes,
wr ()()