In seventh grade my younger brother was exposed to higher culture and western literature. His English teacher decided that memorizing a poem would be a profitable way of teaching him about the civilizing aspects of modern culture, perhaps giving him some romantic appeal as he approached the liberating age of adolescence. My brother, who was perhaps too far gone for such rescuing efforts, saw through the ploy immediately. We held a strategy session, and decided that if he found a longer poem more to his liking, she could have no objection on purely academic grounds. I think its fair to say that he escaped the civilizing aspects of modern culture virtually unscathed.
Poetry has impact.
Poetry is coupled often with music, perhaps because they speak the same language, the language of the heart. David's Psalms, beautiful examples of Hebrew poetry, were thought to be accompanied with music at one time. Yet even without the music, the passion, the wide range of emotions can rarely be equalled in any other part of the Bible. Whenever more than intellectual interest is important, we find poetry surfacing as a potent method of communicating emotional and subjective truth. I think the whole issue is a problem of modern thought.