What's it all about?

[popeye]

How does one define poetry?

Here's a couple of definitions from google: po·et·ry /ˈpōətrē/Noun: 1. Literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm;... 2. A quality of beauty and intensity of emotion regarded as characteristic of poems: "poetry and fire are nicely balanced in the music".

Poetry is an imaginative awareness of experience expressed through meaning, sound, and rhythmic language choices so as to evoke an emotional response.

And this by Billy Collins!

Introduction To Poetry by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.