I think it's a good question, no less good for being unaswerable with any final definition. The word has been stretched with use, like most words, but the very fact that we continue to use it suggests that we still find it useful.
To my ear poetry is language used as much for sound and form as for paraphrasable meaning; or it's sound and form that are inextricable from meaning. To my taste, it includes at least the ghost of meter, as one poet-scholar has put it. But I love being surprised by "poems" that seem at first to be far from my preconceptions and that then turn out either to meet them in unexpected ways or to force me to rethink them. That's part of the conversation that I think poetry is a vital part of.
Richard
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Hybrid Mode
