Paying attention is not a bad thing. We have too much going on. Our lives are replete with stuff blurring together, and then it's another day. We seldom find ourselves truly moved. Our reactions are diluted by an excess of stimulation and information overload.
Poems make it possible to focus on one thing.
An emotion, an image. Poets select words that point intensely. This is why they're much shorter than stories. This is packed stuff, a case of less is more. Dante's Inferno, Paradise Lost.