What is poetry

[milo]

I am curious as to what others think:  What is poetry?  In this age it would seem that any block of words put together in any form can be called poetry.  Free verse, traditional verse, digital poetry, concrete poetry, visual poetry, prose poetry -- the list goes on.  The issue I have is that if anything and everything is poetry, doesn't the term 'poetry' lose all meaning?  

Don't get me wrong:  I write poetry of different types.  But perhaps "poetry" is dead, and now we are simply wordsmiths. So, how would you define poetry?

I think this question comes up pretty frequently as a cheap way to farm engagement and it, theoretically, should work - right?  I mean we are on a poetry site - people must feel passionately about what it is.

At the end of the day - it never really produces much discussion and the dictionary.com definition is good enough for all of our purposes.  Even though I despise meta poetry, perhaps I haev written one or two about the topic, I will check.