I can still recall how I liked my mother singing when I was very little. How I enjoyed the words and the melody and the rhythm. My father recited poets and I can recall how he enjoyed the wordings and I guess it became a part of my cultural inheritance. We had a library where the family gathered during week-ends to read and to relax. As children we had our own books. The elders inspired us to read literature by telling fascinating extracts from books. Churchill's "My youngest life" or "My youth" was one of those inspired reading experiences.
As a teenager I learned poems by heart and I can still recite most of them. I liked poems with rhymed simple words that related a story. For an American audience poets like Fröding, Runeberg, Lenngren, Karlfeldt, Stagnelius, Tegnér, Källgren, Högstedt, won't have much meaning, but all are word equibrilists using rather simple words. One other example is the Icelandic Saga and especially Havamal with its rules of life rhymed in alliterative rhymes and also rhymes within the words. You have to appreciate it how difficult it was to write in this way and how skilled they were.
In a way poems have a resemblance with proverbs supplying us with guidelines to life. The ancient laws used rhymes and metrics as they had to be learnt by heart in lack of a written language. Many of these laws are really poetic and Havamal is one example though it is more like rules of wisdom. To give an example from Havamal:

"Young and alone on a long road,
Once I lost my way:
Rich I felt when I found another;
Man rejoices in man."

Poetic expressions like these are also to be found in the Bible and especially in the Book of Proverbs, the Preacher and in Canticle of Canticles. The rustic poetry in these books is impressing and one of my favorites are the lyrics about the cycles in the Preacher.
What I find impressive in poems is an expression that is obvious when I read it, though I never have heard it before. I guess this is the way poets would like to express themselves.
Without the help of rhymes and metrics the poets writing free verse have an even more difficult task. In order to get an extraordinary text they have to rely only on the expressions. The only criterion is to start a new paragraph over and over again to differ from prose.
If I now summarize my own experience I think it will be rather close to my definition for poetry.

"Poetry is a condensed essay, melodious and beautiful to read, the wordings stunning and appealing and used in new combinations giving them a new meaning for the reader. Poetry is written in meter and verse The words are arranged on the paper in a graphically attractive way. "

On the other hand, the only difference between prose and poetry change line in a different way than prose. Vers in Latin means change.
I think both the exercise with the definition as well as this exercise are good ways to discover the basic idea for writing poems. When we discussed the definition of a poem it was implied that it should be beautiful with melody, metric and wordings. The beauty of a poem might serve a purpose, being beneficial in the way that we enjoy reading it and feel uplifted and comforted by the words.
It might be an extra curriculum activity beyond the scope for this assignment to comment about my own struggle with words and metrics and what I find rewarding in writing poetry.
To get an outline it is a very good help to have the notebook suggested in the first Lecture and to collect ideas in that notebook. I always keep a few extra business cards in my pocket for this purpose and I always have pen and paper ready. The notes are then kept in my computer.
When the outline is ready, the struggle begins to combine the wordings and the metrics into a scheme like a cross word puzzle. It feels rewarding when the words finally fall in the right place.
If I for one reason or another want to change the metrics it is like starting all over again but with the same idea. I find it striking that it adds to the picture. I experience the same thing when I translate a poem. The richness of the language is impressive.
How much does the expression and the wording affect your attitude and your perception? Simple wording might change our whole view of a certain problem.
To write poems can also be beneficial for the writer, a kind of therapy for him. We write in order to overcome our separations, jealousy, love, or whatever that might disturb us.