Ted Kooser in Poetry Home Repair Manual on the value of details in a poem:
- It's the details that make experiences unique and compelling. It s watching one particular old woman in a cardigan sweater burn wallpaper in a barrel, pushing it down and down with a crowbar.
Finely detailed writing won't make it a poem, but it will bring the reader into the scene, whatever scene you're setting, so that you can perform whatever magic poetry can effect within the scene.