14世纪晚期，poetrie，“诗歌，韵文创作；一首诗；古代文学；诗歌作品，寓言或故事”，来自古法语poetrie（13世纪），可能直接源自中世纪拉丁语poetria（约650年），源自拉丁语poeta（参见poet）。在古典拉丁语中，poetria意为“女诗人”；“诗歌”是poetica或poetice。
比喻用法始于1660年代。古英语有metergeweorc“韵文”，metercræft“韵律艺术”。还有scop-cræft“诗人的艺术”。现代英语在这一组词中缺乏真正的动词形式，尽管有poeticize（1804年），poetize（1580年代，来自法语poétiser）和poetrize（约1600年）被尝试。拉丁语动词是poetari“创作诗歌，成为诗人”。Poetry in motion（1826年）可能来自poetry of motion（1813年）“舞蹈”（也有poetry of the foot，1660年代）。Poetry slam始于1993年。
It is only by a miracle that poetry is written at all. It is not recoverable thought, but a hue caught from a vaster receding thought. A poem is one undivided unimpeded expression fallen ripe into literature, and it is undividedly and unimpededly received by those for whom it was matured. [Thoreau, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"]
Poetry — meaning the aggregate of instances from which the idea of poetry is deduced by every new poet — has been increasingly enlarged for many centuries. The instances are numerous, varied and contradictory as instances of love; but just as 'love' is a word of powerful enough magic to make the true lover forget all its baser and falser, usages, so is 'poetry' for the true poet. [Robert Graves, "The White Goddess"]
Rien de ce qui ne transporte pas n'est poésie. La lyre est un instrument ailé. ("Nothing which does not transport is poetry. The lyre is a winged instrument.") [#286 from "Pensées of (Joseph) Joubert"]
