Title text:
My icebox plum trap easily captured William Carlos Williams. It took much less work than the infinite looping network of diverging paths I had to build in that yellow wood to ensnare Robert Frost.
Transcript:
Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com
Source: https://xkcd.com/3209/
This is one of those moments where my lack of cultural understanding rears up, because this is where I say "how is that a poem" and it becomes evidence of some kind of bigotry.
It is a poem because poems are structured in lines rather than sentences. For example, this paragraph is prose. .
.
.
This is a poem
Because poems are made of lines
Rather than sentences.
It’s very easy
Anyone can do this now
Even you and me
Hi, Coo.
Precisely!
Of course, saying anything can be poetry is like saying anything can be music - while it is true, tastes vary and not everything will seem like "good poetry" to everyone. And that's ok!
I think people struggle with it because when you're a little kid poetry is taught as having to rhyme and have a particular format. Then you get older and run into shit like this.
e e cummings [yes that is capitalized and punctuated properly] was a master of using lines and space.