Do you mean written 'academic' poetry? Because poetry had a more day to day use than that. The rhythm and the rhyming is a mnemonic device. It makes it much

Do you mean written 'academic' poetry? Because poetry had a more day to day use than that. The rhythm and the rhyming is a mnemonic device. It makes it much easier to remember a text than when spoken in prose. I can't imagine even our early ancestors not making use of that. In fact the earliest literature was passed from generation to generation as an oral tradition.