Hip Glossary: Poem

Po"em (?), n. [L. poëma, Gr. , fr. to make, to compose, to write, especially in verse: cf. F. poëme.]

1. A metrical composition; a composition in verse written in certain measures, whether in blank verse or in rhyme, and characterized by imagination and poetic diction; — contradistinguished from prose; as, the poems of Homer or of Milton.

2. A composition, not in verse, of which the language is highly imaginative or impassioned; as, a prose poem; the poems of Ossian.

Source:websters1913dictionary