What Is Poetry?

What is poetry?
A question asked by so many
Yet known by so few
Is it a free flowing art?
One without rythm?
Rhyme?
Reason?

 Or is it a must for mostly metaphysical metaphors?
 Contained within an aoustanding, amazingly ambient alliteration? 
 Does it have to pose the questions of life and death?
 Will any of us truly know what some poems refer to?

 To an experienced artist or even author
 A poem does not have to have to bear any of the above 
 It is merely a way to convey the feelings of a person
 The depth of a mind, swirling as a vortex of raw emotion
 
 It can be anything that the author interprets
 And so much more
 It's confined only to the limitations of the readers mind
 And the imagination of the authors soul