the.com/poetic license

means The liberty writers and artists take to bend facts, grammar, or logic for the sake of a stronger effect, rather than because they didn't know better.

from Rooted in Latin licentia ("freedom, permission, boldness" — the same root as license), the phrase 'poetic license' emerged in English literary criticism as a way to name the deviations poets routinely took from grammar, fact, or form in service of rhythm, image, or feeling. It's less a legal permit than an old critical shorthand: an acknowledgment that poetry has always bent the rules truth and prose live by.