What is Poetry

What is Poetry?
   
   
   A poem may appear to mean very different things
   to different readers, and all of these meanings
   may be different from what the author thought he
   meant.  For instance, the author may have been
   writing some peculiar personal experience, which
   he saw quite unrelated to anything outside;  yet
   for the reader the poem may become the expression
   of a general situation, as well as of some
   private experience of his own.  The reader's
   interpretation may differ from the author's and
   be equally valid-- it may even be better.  There
   may be much more in a poem than the author was
   aware of.  The different interpretations may all
   be partial formulations of one thing;  the
   ambiguities may be due to the fact that the poem
   means more, not less, than ordinary speech can
   communicate.
                    T.S. Eliot