What is Poetry? as defined by a lot of other persons who take it seriously...

Poetry is the kind of thing poets write. (Robert Frost)


Poetry is the overflow of emotions within us. (Langston Hughes)

A poem is a piece of writing that expresses emotions, experiences, and ideas, especially in short lines using words that rhyme. (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English)

A poem is a piece of writing in which the words are chosen for their sound and the images and ideas they suggest, not just their obvious meaning. The words are arranged in separate lines, often ending in rhyme. (Cambridge International Dictionary of English)

A poem is a piece of writing using beautiful or unusual language arranged in fixed lines that have a particular beat and often rhyme. ( Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners)

Poetry is the reflection of the soul. ( Julie L. H. Strouf)

Poetry is a composition in verse. (A general dictionary definition)

Poetry is not the thing said but a way of saying it. (A.E. Housman)

Poetry is a language which tells us, through a more or less emotional reaction, something that cannot be said. (Edward Arlington Robinson)

Poetry is “game of knowledge, a bringing to consciousness, by naming them, of emotions and their hidden relationships.” (W. H. Auden)

(…and from Lawrence Ferlinghetti)
Poetry is news from the frontiers of consciousness.

Poetry is what we would cry out upon awaking in a dark wood in the middle of the journey of our lives.

Poetry is a mirror walking down a high street full of visual delights.

Poetry is the anarchy of the senses making sense.

Poetry is the dialogue of naked statuses.

Poetry is the pillow-thought after intercourse.

Poetry is the far far cries upon a beach at nightfall.

Poetry is all things born with wings that sing.

Poetry should arise to ecstasy somewhere between speech and song.

Poetry is the street talk of angels and demons.

Poetry is what exists between the lines.
Poetry is the best words in the best order. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

Prose consists of words in their best order; poetry consists of the BEST words in the BEST order – Samuel Coleridge

Poetry is “the rhythmical creation of beauty” – Edgar Allan Poe

Poetry is “a reaching out towards expression, an effort to find fulfillment”. In a complete poem, “an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words”. – Robert Frost

Poetry is the “most beautiful, the most impressive, and the most effective mode of saying things”. – Matthew Arnold

Poetry is the “record of the best and happiest moments of the best minds, the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth”. – Percy Bysshe Shelly

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Ars Poetica

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit
Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where moss has grown
A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs
Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees
Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves
Memory by memory the mind

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

A poem should be equal to:
Not true
For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf
For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea

A poem should not mean
But be

Written by Archibald MacLeish



Poetry is a way to use language to say more than the simple words themselves. It communicates a significant experience shared by many by allowing us to become a part of that experience.