The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Poetry \Po"et*ry\, n. [OF. poeterie. See Poet.]
   1. The art of apprehending and interpreting ideas by the
      faculty of imagination; the art of idealizing in thought
      and in expression.
      [1913 Webster]

            For poetry is the blossom and the fragrance of all
            human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions,
            emotions, language.                   --Coleridge.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Imaginative language or composition, whether expressed
      rhythmically or in prose. Specifically: Metrical
      composition; verse; rhyme; poems collectively; as, heroic
      poetry; dramatic poetry; lyric or Pindaric poetry. "The
      planetlike music of poetry." --Sir P. Sidney.
      [1913 Webster]

            She taketh most delight
            In music, instruments, and poetry.    --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

poetry
    n 1: literature in metrical form [syn: poetry, poesy,
         verse]
    2: any communication resembling poetry in beauty or the
       evocation of feeling

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

35 Moby Thesaurus words for "poetry":
   Apollo, Apollo Musagetes, Bragi, Calliope, Castilian Spring, Erato,
   Euterpe, Helicon, Hippocrene, Muse, Parnassus, Pierian Spring,
   Pierides, Polyhymnia, afflatus, creative imagination, ease,
   elegance, facility, fire of genius, flow, fluency, grace,
   gracefulness, inspiration, metrics, poesy, poetic genius, rhyme,
   rune, smoothness, song, the Muses, verse, versification



Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary:

Poetry
   has been well defined as "the measured language of emotion."
   Hebrew poetry deals almost exclusively with the great question
   of man's relation to God. "Guilt, condemnation, punishment,
   pardon, redemption, repentance are the awful themes of this
   heaven-born poetry."

     In the Hebrew scriptures there are found three distinct kinds
   of poetry, (1) that of the Book of Job and the Song of Solomon,
   which is dramatic; (2) that of the Book of Psalms, which is
   lyrical; and (3) that of the Book of Ecclesiastes, which is
   didactic and sententious.

     Hebrew poetry has nothing akin to that of Western nations. It
   has neither metre nor rhyme. Its great peculiarity consists in
   the mutual correspondence of sentences or clauses, called
   parallelism, or "thought-rhyme." Various kinds of this
   parallelism have been pointed out:

     (1.) Synonymous or cognate parallelism, where the same idea is
   repeated in the same words (Ps. 93:3; 94:1; Prov. 6:2), or in
   different words (Ps. 22, 23, 28, 114, etc.); or where it is
   expressed in a positive form in the one clause and in a negative
   in the other (Ps. 40:12; Prov. 6:26); or where the same idea is
   expressed in three successive clauses (Ps. 40:15, 16); or in a
   double parallelism, the first and second clauses corresponding
   to the third and fourth (Isa. 9:1; 61:10, 11).

     (2.) Antithetic parallelism, where the idea of the second
   clause is the converse of that of the first (Ps. 20:8; 27:6, 7;
   34:11; 37:9, 17, 21, 22). This is the common form of gnomic or
   proverbial poetry. (See Prov. 10-15.)

     (3.) Synthetic or constructive or compound parallelism, where
   each clause or sentence contains some accessory idea enforcing
   the main idea (Ps. 19:7-10; 85:12; Job 3:3-9; Isa. 1:5-9).

     (4.) Introverted parallelism, in which of four clauses the
   first answers to the fourth and the second to the third (Ps.
   135:15-18; Prov. 23:15, 16), or where the second line reverses
   the order of words in the first (Ps. 86:2).

     Hebrew poetry sometimes assumes other forms than these. (1.)
   An alphabetical arrangement is sometimes adopted for the purpose
   of connecting clauses or sentences. Thus in the following the
   initial words of the respective verses begin with the letters of
   the alphabet in regular succession: Prov. 31:10-31; Lam. 1, 2,
   3, 4; Ps. 25, 34, 37, 145. Ps. 119 has a letter of the alphabet
   in regular order beginning every eighth verse.

     (2.) The repetition of the same verse or of some emphatic
   expression at intervals (Ps. 42, 107, where the refrain is in
   verses, 8, 15, 21, 31). (Comp. also Isa. 9:8-10:4; Amos 1:3, 6,
   9, 11, 13; 2:1, 4, 6.)

     (3.) Gradation, in which the thought of one verse is resumed
   in another (Ps. 121).

     Several odes of great poetical beauty are found in the
   historical books of the Old Testament, such as the song of Moses
   (Ex. 15), the song of Deborah (Judg. 5), of Hannah (1 Sam. 2),
   of Hezekiah (Isa. 38:9-20), of Habakkuk (Hab. 3), and David's
   "song of the bow" (2 Sam. 1:19-27).


The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906):

POETRY, n.  A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the
Magazines.