The difference between prose and poetry is that prose is very straightforward most of the time, it is equivalent to just everyday language and speech people use. Poetry is much more descriptive and is used in an artistic way to describe something or someone. Poetry is a language that is more expressive due to the rhymes and or comparisons being used. The author Matsuo Bashō switches between prose and poetry when he is narrating his journey to widen the perspective of traveling. Author Bashō uses prose to simply document what he’s seen, what’s he’s done and what he encounters on his trips. But, he also uses poetry specifically, to what is now commonly known as, a haiku. One can tell when he alternates from storytelling to poetry because he indents and spaces to separate and describe an emotional thought or a response. There are indents and dashes in the small sections where the poems are located. Using prose, Bashõ is very direct because in a way, he is keeping record, but when it comes to using poetry, he is very lively but only for a brief moment. I believe the reason why Bashō choses to write in prose, then change the style to poetry is because he is trying to convey and express how he is feeling of whom or what he encounters. In a way, he uses poetry to describe to the readers of what he is visually thinking (in words of course) instead of using prose and being long-winded.