Hi, sorry for the late response (I went to the beach with my family), and yes, absolutely!
Poetry is a story in itself. Your word choice and mood do for a poem what descriptions and imagery do for a novel. I would love to be able to write poetry (unfortunately, I fail at any poetry I try to write. All of my stuff sounds contrived...) A poem can tell in one line what a novel might take three or four paragraphs to say.
Some people might say poetry is not as difficult as writing a long book, but it is right up there with the rest.
The only difference is that a book is long and uses words to tell a story, while a poem is usually shorter and uses more emotion.
Also, you can absolutely turn a story idea into a sequence of poems.
If you wanted to, you could write a chapter as a poem and tell the story over the course of many many poems.
Another thing: If you haven't read it yet, you should check out "the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". It's a poem that tells a story in three pages, and it's very good!
Poems are wonderful and awesome. I personally stink at poetry, and I am in awe of anyone who can write a poem.
