Language under pressure: sound, form and meaning working at once.
Ways in
Close reading, cognitive experiments, performance analysis, historical research.
The longer story
Poetry concentrates language—sound, rhythm, image, meaning compressed into small space. Close reading is essential but not sufficient. Cognitive approaches examine how poetry affects readers. Performance analysis studies how poetry is voiced. Historical research traces forms and conventions. What makes this sequence of words a poem and not just sentences arranged oddly? The question is irreducible.