«I live in possibility-- / A house fairer than prose. . .” (Dickinson) Poetry in its most basic form predates literacy. In fact, poetry was first used as a technique to help keep an oral record of things like history, stories, genealogy, and in some cases even law. Most people came to believe that poetry was so widely used because it was much easier to memorize than prose, and in the era of texts like the Odyssey, oral recitation was the number one way to transmit information from one individual to another. another. It is therefore needless to note that poetry has undergone many changes throughout history. With the oldest surviving poem being The Shipwrecked Sailor's Tale, dated to around 4,500 BCE, and the most recent currently being typed on someone's laptop, it's no wonder things have had to change. Every poet has his or her own opinion about poetry, what it is and what it means. These ideas all vary, drawing their definitions from the modern world as well as the historical world. Three poets have succeeded in the almost impossible task of defining poetry by example, Wallace Stevens in his modern poetry text, Archibald MacLeish in his Ars Poetica text, and Marianne Moore in her poetry text. Wallace Stevens' text of modern poetry circulates around the central idea of ​​poetry filling the long hollow void in the lives of those who did not know how to find deeper meaning. The most important thing to remember about Steven's text is the period in which it was published. This poem first appeared in a collection of poems called Parts of a world in 1942. Now it is important to note that just a year before this collection was published, Japan bombed Pearl Harbo..... . middle of paper ... the government or made it disappear. Poetry has become an integral part of every culture in every era and will most likely remain a defining factor for generations to come. As long as there are people around to create and remember, poetics will survive, and that is a fact. Works Cited Angelou, Maya. I know why the caged bird sings. New York: Random, 2002. Print. Babbitt, Natalie. Eternal tuck. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1975. Print. Dickinson, Emily. “How happy Little Peter is.” The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. By Emily Dickinson and Thomas Herbert Johnson. London: Faber, 1970. N. pag. Print.- - -. “I live in possibility.” The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. By Emily Dickinson and Thomas Herbert Johnson. London: Faber, 1970. N. pag. Print.Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and other writings. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1993. Print.