One element that may be often overlooked in poetry and many other styles of writing is the art of allusion.  While one may be able to glaze over the surface of the poem, without the understanding of the allusion, it may become convoluted, or the meaning may be interpreted as something totally different than intended by the author.  For example, in e e cummings’ poem [in Just-], Cummings packs in an allusion at the end when he writes

it’s
spring
and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan            whistles
far
and
wee

In this text, Cummings is referring to the Greek God of Pan, the mythical satyr born with goat legs, who always played his flute during the springtime, hence the whistling. torbakhopper via Compfight

Allusion will always be my favorite poetry term simply because of how flexible it is.  It pulls elements from both symbolism and connotation and wraps them up in a neat, little package delivered straight to the reader.  As I previously stated about [in Just-] by e e cummings,  while the highly educated and keen reader will most likely pick up the fact that the balloon man is supposed to be Pan, that is a detail that will merely be skimmed over by those unable to see Cummings’s small details.