What is poetry?

There are so many various outlooks on life; so many different ways of "writing out" all the thoughts and hopes and dreams of any individual, or several individuals, or a nation. Today, meandering through rows of shelves, each one containing a dizzying array of books, I tasted a sample of bewilderment as I tried to find something that I liked. There was fiction, art, history, fantasy, science, gardening and cooking each in its own segment; the colored picture books and the encyclopedias had their corner of the library. Then there was the poetry section, which I generally lean towards, filled with thick volumes of Robert Frost, Emily Dickenson, Lowell, and a great many other composers whose beloved names I can't seem to recall. There is so much diversity (and a few similarities) between each author's style, that it's hard to find the thread that connects them. Why do they all call themselves poets? Is it because the lines are centered on the page, or because  they have the freedom to cut out letters and capitals or add them in? It can't be that they write of the same things, that there is a set topic for poetry; because there isn't. Some people write about sand and wind and ocean tides, some people focus on character, some on whatever debate they are interested in, and some on the reflections of street lights on rain-washed pavement. So what is poetry then?
I very honestly don't know. It is some deep, inner urge to put into lyrical words a feeling or a thought. A hunger for the ideas to straighten and form into something readable, if not logical, and beautiful even when they're confusing. But to write the meaning of poetry in complete, unbroken detail would be very, very difficult.
I finally checked out a book of collected poems written by James Lowell, and took it home to enjoy throughout the week. When I had settled down to read  some of it, I found a poem describing poetry, which I thought I could insert right at the end of this post. Unfortunately, looking through the book to find it again, I haven't seen it at all. So I'll just have to do without my neat conclusion and end the post here. But I can slide in some other poetry by Lowell (I've really been enjoying this rather old-fashioned set of sonnets). This is the first stanza in The Token, written by Lowell in 1842:

It is a mere wild rosebud,

Quite sallow now, and dry,

Yet there's something wondrous in it,-

Some gleams of days gone by,-

Dear sights and sounds that are to me

The very moons of memory,

And stir my heart's blood far below

It's short-lived waves of joy and woe.

Sometime I'll write down the rest of it, but not right now. Right now I want to sleep.