I'm hoping to make it into a full-ride graduate program in poetry writing within the next three years (there are at least two in the US) . . . learning everything I can about reading and writing poetry right now, after a few years "percolating" with a more general undergraduate focus on literature and philosophy.
I've been trying to understand where poetry, as a unique artform, stands in the modern world. In my experience, most people either don't like poetry or never really pursue it. Misconceptions abound: poetry must rhyme, poetry must build from something, poetry must sound a certain way . . .
Poetry can do any of those things, but really poetry is writing in its most condensed form. Great poetry couples the abstract and concrete, giving surface and symbolic readings at once with words chosen carefully and purposefully.
My most recent guess is that most people expect poetry to reveal itself as quickly as film--while just barely understanding the connection between the arts therein. Poetry, often, appears to be "small"--a poem will often contain less words than other forms of writing. I wonder if the logic goes: fewer words = less time required to read/understand.
However, poetry--particularly for readers who haven't experienced a lot of different poetry--demands more than a quick glance. When given reflection and patience, a great poem will share its secrets in a way quite unlike prose, and also a bit different from verse.