What is a poem?

A poem
          is made of written lines
          containing thoughts
          and feelings and memories
          and fears and desires
          and warnings and resolutions
          and thanks and imagination,
       in which the punctuation
          and indentation
          is more interesting
          than in prose.

          In prose the words come out one after another, expressing all that also, with as much interest and sincerity as the writer can muster, but the arrangement of the words on the page is determined by the width of the page, the decided-upon margins, and by the wrap-around program of the word processor.

The poet is in charge of all of it,
         including the arrangement
         of the words
                on the page.

William R. Leach (1954-1999)
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