What's poetry? and how to write a poem?

You ask. Why, this, and nothing else,

As I see it friend everything's a poem

More or less. It needs the eye to see it so,

That's all.

Reading a book's a poem. A city street

With the blue sky overhead - a pretty girl -

A flower in an unexpected nook -

Perhaps an old man looking out to sea

Before he turns to the work at hand -

Or the wind in the trees - or the sun

In a copper bowl - all these or anyone's

A poem. Walking's a poem

Crowds of people make great poems.

Smoke is a poem. To make it short, friend,

Everything's poetry. It needs the eye

To see it and appreciation

and the sure hand to set it down

In worlds that run to the mind's taste

And the ear's too. Don't forget that.

Poetry's all about us, limitless it seems.

But few there are who see it,

How very few can tell it.

That's my thought about the matter, friend.