When I used to ask students what a poem is, I would get answers like “a painting in words,” or “a medium for self-expression,” or “a song that rhymes and displays beauty.” None of these answers ever really satisfied me, or them, and so for a while I stopped asking the question.Then one time, I requested that my students bring in to class something that had a personal meaning to them. With their objects on their desks, I gave them three prompts: first, to write a paragraph about why they brought in the item; second, to write a paragraph describing the item empirically, as a SCIENTIST might; and third, to write a paragraph in the first-person from the point-of-view of the item. The first two were warm-ups. Above the third paragraph I told them to write “Poem.”Here is what one STUDENT wrote:PoemI might look weird or terrifying, but really I’m a device that helps people breathe. Under normal circumstances nobody needs me. I mean, I’m only used for emergencies and even then only for a LIMITED time. If you’re LUCKY, you’ll never have to use me. Then again, I can see some future time when EVERYBODY will have to carry me around.The item he had brought to class? A gas mask. The point of this exercise wasn’t only to illustrate the malleability of language or the playfulness of writing, but to present the idea that a poem is a strange thing which operates as nothing else in the world does.I suppose most of us have known poems are strange ever since we were infants being put to bed with lullabies like “Rock-a-bye baby,” or were children being taught prayers that begin “Our Father who art in Heaven….” The questions soon arose: What idiot put that cradle in a tree? And what’s art got to do with my Daddy-God? But this kind of strangeness we got used to. And later, at some point in school, we asked or were made to ask again: What is a poem?