Essay versus Poem
What’s the difference?
Oh, there’s a difference!
You type one and hand write the other one.
One should come out with facility, almost like thought, and the other is to be built like an object of sound structure and appealing form.
If one is your involuntary signature, your handwriting, as they say, the other is your thoughtfully-conceived drawing technique.
One is hit or miss, and the other one is hit when enough time has passed between each episode of shaping and deliberating and searching and toiling.
A successful essay is a thought on a line, unbroken and moving on (and not necessarily forward), and anything else attached to it, such as a clever rhythm or sound structure is nothing more than a bonus.
A successful poem is a thought on a form that may at first seem to be on a line, that takes any shape, disposition, or length within a conceived structure, and which may allow any bonus to be added to it for the benefit of added fascination but at the expense of precluding any possibility of attaining perfection.