A poem should not mean
But be

Archibald MacLeish
..,,..,

Quoted above. Maybe. Lots of poets have tried to define what poetry is and does. I love Will's formulation, spoken by Duke Theseus in MND

As the Imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns it to shapes, and gives to aery nothing
A local habitation and a name

≈M≈

O how I wish I could be a poet! I have a first-cousin who is a well-known one, Richard Burns aka Berengarten.. But I, alas, tho I can write discursively, & come up with an occasional bit of comic verse to win the odd magazine competition, was born without the true creative gene — one of the greatest regrets of my long life.