Poetry reading is a contemplative art. It might be the most intense contemplative art and, among secular pursuits, the most sublime. That's probably why I'm no good at it.
If you want to understand poetry, you must get Understanding Poetry. I've read a handful of books about the appreciation of poetry, and that one is a classic and the best. It'll broaden your sphere of intellect beyond the poetic.
But if you don't want to get that involved, you can instead focus on a handful of poems that interest you personally. For me, those would be poems about drinking. A loyal TDE reader sent this one to me earlier this week. I'm tempted to print it out and have it framed:
The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks, & gapes for drink again;
The plants suck in the earth, & are
With constant drinking fresh & fair;
The sea itself (which one would think
Should have but little need of drink),
Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up,
So fill'd that they o'erflow the cup.
The busy Sun (and one would guess
By 's drunken fiery face no less)
Drinks up the sea, & when he's done,
The Moon & Stars drink up the Sun.
They drink & dance by their own light,
They drink & revel all the night:
Nothing in Nature's sober found,
But an eternal health goes round.
Fill up the bowl, then, fill it high,
Fill all the glasses there -- for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me, WHY?
Abraham Cowley.
