Imagine where we'd be if Basho et al hadn't got sick of all the formalities of renga and decided they preferred a quickie... or if the Elizabethans had just accepted that a sonnet had to have that Italian format... or if the early free-versers (a misnomer, but one that must serve here and be kept for debate another day 
) had just said "oh bugger it, I can't make it rhyme so I'll give up"...
We all have preferences, some things that we consider "more poetic" than others, but in essence those are just the things that most resonate with our sensibilities and experiences. For example, I've seen "found poems" that are nothing more than chopped up and re-lined prose without a single poetic device that I recognise, and I resent their being included in the pool that is poetry, but I'm forced to accept that they may be regarded as such. I'm not forced to like them though
) had just said "oh bugger it, I can't make it rhyme so I'll give up"...We all have preferences, some things that we consider "more poetic" than others, but in essence those are just the things that most resonate with our sensibilities and experiences. For example, I've seen "found poems" that are nothing more than chopped up and re-lined prose without a single poetic device that I recognise, and I resent their being included in the pool that is poetry, but I'm forced to accept that they may be regarded as such. I'm not forced to like them though
It could be worse