Poetry, and writing about poetry, has long enjoyed the sort of amorphous characterization that comes along with the territory. Ask a hundred poetry readers or poets what a poem is and you'll get a sea's worth of different answers in return. Formalists and traditionalists will probably give you the dictionary definition of a poem as "a composition in verse" and preach about the importance of rhythm, cadence, and of the trials of creating a unique voice within very strict parameters. Other schools...
Poetry, and writing about poetry, has long enjoyed the sort of amorphous characterization that comes along with the territory. Ask a hundred poetry readers or poets what a poem is and you'll get a sea's worth of different answers in return. Formalists and traditionalists will probably give you the dictionary definition of a poem as "a composition in verse" and preach about the importance of rhythm, cadence, and of the trials of creating a unique voice within very strict parameters. Other schools...
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