What is poetry?

One of the more interesting aspects of this public submission format is picturing the poet in your mind. Who was it? What did they look like? What were they feeling and thinking while fiddling with your car? Although this is more a declaration than poetry, I picture a young woman who has just left her ultrasound. She is unable to make phone calls fast enough to give her friends and family the news. When you have a baby there are a couple times you want a bullhorn to scream out to the world what you are feeling. This is one of those times. I see her standing behind my jeep looking for the "!!!" magnet. If poetry is "communication in beauty or the evocation of feeling"-- this must surely be the latter.