Imaginative literary form, particularly suitable for describing emotions and thoughts. Poetry is highly ‘compressed’ writing, often using figures of speech to talk about one thing in terms of another, such as metaphor and simile, that allows the reader to ‘unpack’ the poem's meaning for itself. This leads to people interpreting poems differently in different times and places, which is part of the fascination of the medium.
"poetry." The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather guide. Abington: Helicon, 2010. Credo Reference. Web. 26 January 2012.
Poems are never finished - just abandoned --Paul Valéry
The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom...in a clarification of life--not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion. --Robert Frost
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words --Goethe
Poetry is poetry, and one's objective as a poet is to achieve poetry precisely as one's objective in music is to achieve music. --Wallace Stevens
Making your own days : the pleasures of reading and writing poetry by 
The Practice of poetry : writing exercises from poets who teach by 
The Oxford companion to twentieth-century poetry in English by 