Poetry is as universal as language and almost as ancient. The most primitive people have used it and the most civilized have cultivated it. In all ages and in all countries poetry has been written and eagerly read or listened to by all kinds of people. The intelligent and the sensitive individual appreciate it greatly and it has appealed, in its simpler forms, to the uneducated and to children. Why? Firstly because gives pleasure, People have read it, listened to it, or recited it because they liked it, because it gave them enjoyment. But this is not the whole answer. Poetry in all ages has been regarded as important, not simply as a form of amusement. Rather it has been regarded as something central to existence, something having unique value to the fully realized life, something without which we are spiritually impoverished. To understand the reason for this we need to have an understanding of what poetry is. What is poetry? Most of us would probably be inclined to evade the answer with words which St. Augustine once used in reference to another matter, "If not asked I know. If you ask me, I know not." A certain instinctive sense of what constitutes poetry we all have but to translate this into exact language seems difficult if not impossible.
