truth in poetry can be accidental, but more often than not it is entirely on purpose. The problem with the poetry vs prose arguement is that there is not a real line between the two styles of communication. Prose is not without emotion in fact it is often more emotional than poetry. Poetry isn't about being emotional. In some cases it is not about emotion at all. There is often a cold hard logic behind the poem. Sometimes it describes an emotional state, but it is rarely in and of itself an emotional response. In order to write a poem one must step back from the emotion that is behind the need to write the poem. It is nearly impossible to write a poem in a hyper emotional state.
Now this is likely just my definition of evil. Evil causing bodily harm up to and including murder, emotional harm, or terror in another person to assert the sense of self of the perpetrator. There maybe secondary benefits and reasons, but stripped down it's about the perpetrator needing to assert their sense of self and where they feel they belong in the world. They may have to beat another person because that person challenged their position of authority. They might have to kill someone because they feel like they are losing their grip on who they are. Or they might just bully people to prop themselves up. In some cases the reasoning behind the perps actions is it's about making money, but it really isn't. When a slave master beat his slaves it was more to assert his sense of self than to make them work harder or to not do things the master didn't like.
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