Why is “the railroad earth” considered both poetry and prose?
it contains poetic elements but is much longer than typical poetry.
it is conventional in structure but has the detailed descriptions characteristic of poetry.
it is a flowing narrative that has poetic rhythm but no line breaks.
it contains internal rhyme schemes but uses them to describe a nonfiction story.

The Railroad Earth is considered as prose and poem because it is a flowing narrative that has poetic rhythm but no line breaks. A prose does not have metrical structure while a poem has lines and rhythms. In that literature, there is a poetic rythm but it is considered to be a prose also because of the absence of line breaks. It does not follow metrical structure but it has a rhythm that is a characteristic of a poem.