Myth
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Poetry doesn't need rhyme or rhythm
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Poetry doesn't need to make sense
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Poetry should disturb the reader
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Poetry doesn't need to be beautiful
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Poetry doesn't need poetic diction
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Poetry is an opportunity for the poet to express himself
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Virginia Woolf was a great poetic pioneer
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Ezra Pound was a great poetic pioneer
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Jack Kerouac was a great poetic pioneer
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Allen Ginsberg was a great poetic pioneer
Reality
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Poetry is musical speech. That means it has sound effects like rhyming, alliteration, or rhythm. Unmusical poetry is subtracted poetry.
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Poetry is an art form made out of language - just like painting is an art form made out of paint. But language is rational. Meaningless poetry is subtracted poetry.
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Only evil disturbs. Poetry was not made for evil, and it doesn't bear the weight of evil well. Poetry that fails to depict goodness is subtracted poetry.
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Poetry is art, and art is inherently aesthetic. It needs an aesthetic effect. That may be beauty, or splendour, or humor, or quirkiness, or some other effect; but dull, pedestrian poetry is subtracted poetry.
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Poetic diction was invented for poetry. A poem using prosaic diction is a subtracted poem.
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Poets, like other human beings, are dull when they speak mainly about themselves. Poetry that fails to present an interesting subject is subtracted poetry.
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Virginia Woolf had some talent, but she was famous mainly for being wealthy, privileged, and immoral. Her poetry was remarkable mainly for what she subtracted from it.
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Ezra Pound had oodles of talent. Fired with a modern ideology, he tried to make old things new. But in the end, all he could do was subtract things from them.
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Jack Kerouac wrote word-things with everything poetic subtracted from them.
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Allen Ginsberg wrote a lot of prose chopped into lines. All the poetry was subtracted from his poetry.