what actually makes a poem?

Question

i think this is quite a philosophical question. I mean, what actually makes a poem? When i think of a poem i think of a poet writing down their emotions and feelings about something, but writing it in a certain formation. But in my english lesson today somebody pointed out that a poem could be a paragraph from a geography book, all you'd need to do is just space out the lines and make it look like a poem. What do people think? What actually makes a poem?

Answer 1

"a poem could be a paragraph from a geography book" -- That is a Post-Modern definition of a poem. The traditional definition of a poem would be that it is a set of words that follows the rules of a given poetic format (such as a sonnet, villanelle, elegy, ode, etc). The reason that a poem LOOKS different from other types of writing is precisely that it must follow a different set of rules. Think about it. Does a resume look the same as a letter to your mother? Does the text of a play read the same way as a novel? The reason they look different on the page is that each is a different form of writing with its own rules.

And that is just what makes the FORM of a poem. There are literally thousands of other issues as to what makes a poem. But if you want to know more, you will have to ask more specific questions.