Plain; Poetic
Wait, how can something be both plain and poetic?
We've got you on this. Read on.
Plain
Plain could be considered an insulting word, sometimes. Like—Oh, she looks so plain. It's not a nice statement. But's not what we're talking about here. Basically, Octavia Butler, through Lauren, writes prose that comes close to ordinary, real-life talk. It's on the other end of the spectrum from a lot of gushy, purple, lyrical prose about beautiful wafts of gossamer flugelhorns or whatever. Lauren just wants to tell you the truth, so she gives you a lot of straightforward sentences.
What do we mean by straightforward, plain prose sentences? Well, for one thing, there isn't much special punctuation in them—you know, things like rows of semicolons and parentheses and exclamation points. Lauren pretty much gets by just using good ol' commas and periods for her punctuation marks. That's a sign of a pretty straightforward person, at least in this case.
What else tips us off that Lauren's style is plain? She uses a lot of basic S-V-O construction. What on Earth is that? Subject-Verb-Object. You know, the subject of the sentence is the first thing that shows up, then comes the verb, and finally there's the object of the verb. For example, "The thieves did take Cory's sewing machine" (13.96). The thieves is the subject phrase, did take is the verb phrase, and Cory's sewing machine is the object phrase.
S-V-O. Very plain. No tricks.
Poetic
Okay, so this is like the opposite of plain. But before you end up all confused, let us explain. Lauren's prose—the main text of the chapters—is plain, but her verse, the Earthseed poetry, is poetic. It's still not super lyrical; in fact, it's pretty straightforward and simple. But it's divided into lines, which makes it poetry (that's not a technical definition, folks). For example:
All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
God
Is Change. (1.Verse)
Those sentences are totally straightforward, but the line breaks give a poetic effect. The verse style heightens the seriousness and the emotion these words are trying to convey. So without sacrificing her down-to-earth manner, Lauren is able to soup up her writing some, by clothing some of it in poetic form.