The terms poetry and poesy are often used interchangeably, but the former (poetry) means that body of literature which is identified as being poems, and the latter (poesy) means the act of composing poetry (and we just thought it was called ... writing!).

There are three traditional major genres of poetry and an infinite number of minor ones. The three major ones are:

1. dramatic poetry - poetry written in dialogue
2. lyric poetry - aka songs
3. narrative poetry - aka story poems

Epics, romances and ballads were originally considered to be poems, and they correspond to our modern novel, novella and short story.

Prose poems - aka long narrative poetry, versus verse poetry.

In the Old Testament (bible ya'll), songs were written in the prose mode (examples - The Song of Songs, and Psalms). The original version of The Book of Job has been somewhat labeled the earliest known drama.