: Re: What makes a poem a poem? Warning: long question. To start it off lightheartedly, here is the topic as doggerel. There are plenty of questions with titles like these: "What is this form?" —

@Murray831

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The fact that poetry cannot be defined is part of what it is about, or one could say what it has become after the "modern" era's abdication of what are usually refered to as formal constraints. Those would be such elements as rhyme, meter, syllabics, and other elements of the poet's toolbox such as alliteration and repetition. That the toolbox contains primarily ways of obtaining sonic effects and emphasis in more subtle ways (such as internal as distinguished from end rhyme). The advent of "free verse," whose name implies that formal constraints are limits, to some limits that must be eschewed.

As of now, "poetry" has been divided roughly into schools or categories: formal, experimental, standard free verse (my term, sorry, for non-rhyming poetry that has more clarity than experimental) which includes "imagism" or its influence, and concrete or language poetry, wherein poetry is reduced to its visual elements, and a book of poetry of this type can consist of photos of typeset excerpts, sometimes blurred for effect, that have no discernible meaning. Others may dispute this limitation of categories, but for the purpose of this question, I wish to point out that these schools are at odds with one another and magazine editors tend to clump into the categories in deciding what to publish (among other considerations.)

Most barely agree that poetry should be something transformational, that moves the reader in some way, and hopefully even brings about a momentary "epiphany." Oh, and that involves language, hopefully with a palpable degree of expertise in that language.

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