Reminds me of the "what is art" conversation everybody kicked around a few weeks back. Still gnawing on that bone.
I prefer the word when over what in conversations like that. Maybe it is because I'm particularly interested in where the boundaries are from one sub-genre to the next, but I like to approach art and poetry asking when they became art and poetry. At what point does this arrangement of words coalesce into a greater whole? When did that panel of kleinblue become a piece of artwork - when did it cease to be a color chip? I guess the lazy way is to say "Art/poetry/whatever becomes such when it is named as such." "If the creator says it is art, then it is art." What is the intent behind the product, essentially? But I think there's more to it than that. I think that people accidentally write poems sometimes. A poem's just one word lined up after another but at some point - click, boom. It's no longer a strand of letters and sound. It's a poem. When?
Word. I like this approach because it kind of sidesteps the pitfalls of false dichotomy- art versus not art. By asking "when," you allow for a sort of spectrum leading from untouched object to managed art form without having to get lost in the weeds of exception. A focus on becoming ("when") rather than being ("what") also invokes this sense that art requires an act of sculpting rather than just arbitrary imposition of will. Feels alright to me.