Max, I think much of poetry has to do with turning the flame down, as Hemingway said, to the point just before it flashes out. He was writing about prose. Sylvia Plath said it just as well, and I paraphrase roughly: "Prose is an open hand; poetry is a closed fist." The enemy is death, so to wave a cape before its nose, most particularly in autumn and winter, is a daring feat. And in that daunting challenge probably lies much of the fascination. Sam Clemens wrote that the best way to defeat the devil is to laugh at him; poets prance around him.