What is Poetry?

(photo by Horia Varlan, www.flickr.com/photos/horiavarlan/4272103787/)

Many people have tried to define poetry, a subjective endeavor. I especially like Emily Dickinson's definition:

"If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry."


This stanza of hers makes the point that language is a living thing:

A WORD is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.


What poems blow your mind and bring language to life?