I would also suggest getting an anthology like 'The Golden Treasury' or Anthony Quiller-Couch or Robert Penn Warren (Six Centuries of British Poetry) or G B Harrison. They are available often in small pocket editions, which one can carry around with one.
It's a collection of epitaphs for the cemetery of a fictional town, and each one basically tells a story. Fiddler Jones[1] and Blind Jack[2] (coincidentally, both about fiddlers) contain a few of my favourite verses in all literature.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_River_Anthology [1] https://www.bartleby.com/84/60.html [2] https://www.bartleby.com/84/74.html
- intense dedication to imagery - his poem Danse Russe, which to me us just about the silly things we do in privacy where no one is around - the fact he was a doctor and churning out an insane quantity of poetry
WCW inspired me to write my own poetry mainly because of that last point. I struggle to describe software engineering in that format, sadly!
When you get past the level of limericks and children's poems level, suddenly you have interpretive choices to make because the precise flow and timing of sounds can work different ways and some work better than others, and as a reader you have to bring an interpretive faculty to these works. When you get to something like John Donne's poetry, you're now deep in "every bit of timing and inflection matters."
For children's poetry to get started, Belloc's 'The Bad Child's Book of Beasts' or the Looking Glass Book of Verse are high quality collections. Then it's worth getting something like a Norton Anthology of Poetry as a way of reading very widely very quickly to find out what appeals to you right now, and explore that further.
Many people recommend the Oxford Book of English Verse. I don't, because I think Quiller-Couch had insipid taste and his editing ranges from the uninspired to the positively atrocious (what he did to John Donne's 'The Ecstasy' is horrid). I have found Garrison Keillor's 'Good Poems' to be particularly approachable, high quality collection of verse. I also suggest Ezra Pound's 'ABCs of Reading', though you shouldn't take what he writes about Chinese as anything other than a metaphor for his topic at hand.
Spend time with Shakespeare, of course. I recommend the Oxford complete works. I do not recommend the Yale complete works. Did my wife and I have a tiff about that? Yes, we did. Was I able to demonstrate by reference to passages that I was right? Yes. Do we only have the Oxford in the house now? Yes.
Robert Frost's complete works are cheaply had and a necessity for someone studying modern poetry. Two or three poems of his are butchered in every school class, and the full range of what he worked on is generally ignored, because it can require a very finely tuned ear to hear and interpret the force that his longer, narrative poems can produce.
But really, once your ear starts to come together, dig through the Norton anthology and use it as pointers to further things to read.
Those of a more Scottish persuasion might prefer Robbie Burns.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv4-yypZ7srAlzk_MQCRaLQ
It's been around since the early 1900's and has lots of good articles and podcasts, even a poetry magazine.
If you're American, it's nice because it focuses a lot on American and Midwestern poets.
And if you're in the Chicagoland area, it has events and its new headquarters downtown is considered an architectural treat.
I prefer Tolkein's applicability of art over auteur theory and allegory. A work of Art applies in many different meanings. Allegory and auteur theory exist as a valid interpretation and are too limited to see the whole picture of what art can do. An artist can intend to write a meaningful poem that conveys love and sadness, an audience member can see that as a foolish endeavor. Both are right, when the poem is executed in a manner that provides fuel for both flames.
Especially concerning self-help books: aren’t most of these books written for those who simply don’t have enough courage to listen to their own common sense?
There is room for a minor hypocrisy in your average criticism of high concept fine art that seeks to express an idea that pushes the field forward despite it not being a complete, popular or useful product. Programmers are doing the same all the time in hobby projects and sometimes they blow up to a massive scale, the same in fine art.
Self help books hit multiple marks, it depends how broadly you see common sense. They help keep a very self-focused individual up to date with the culture and provide extra insight into common problems people can have. They can be used by the reader to explore a thought that is related to what is being read. They can be used as a reference point in a relationship. They can be a starting for point for people with psychological issues to begin the climb back up to a healthy state. They provide a window into another person's perspective on the world and that can be entertaining in itself.
This board is highly focused towards a certain set of goals and a certain set of outcomes. There are a bunch of perspectives that get trimmed in the comments, which is inline with the stated objective of this place as a technology incubator. Any derision or negativity to fields that don't have an immediate application in the tech field are going to be given more leniency than other windows into negativity, like flat-earthers, religious comments and lazy criticism of tech from other fields. That's part of what makes HN what it is. Independence in commenting (and content) has become a limited phenomena online.
As with all natural language, production and interpretation of poems is subjective. Poetry is just an attempt to use natural language without the constraints of prose, in order to accomplish things that are not possible with prose.
Some poets may have a goal to convey a particular idea or emotion. Others may just want to create something moves the reader. Still others may not care about the reader at all. All of these things are okay.
But seriously, I think we can all agree that among the literary arts, poetry is the most likely to be accidentally uninterpretable. Due to its cultural context it is also the area where uninterpretability is the most likely to be accepted. This creates an environment where you run a serious risk of developing a culture of meaninglessness.
Some poetry is made to make you laugh like Billy Collins' Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun in the House.
Some poetry is purposefully inscrutable and difficult because the author wants you to work to understand them. A good example of this might be r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r by E.E. Cummings.
Each of these examples is meaningful in its own different way. I think trying to decide what has meaning is hard because you might automatically discard a work of art that is "just for fun". Isn't play meaningful?
I am sure the same applies, to e.g. William Blake.
"Meaning" may be present but is irrelevant if the experience is the same—what evidence do you want? Getting something out of poetry? Many people clearly do, if that's the test.
For me the first piece that spoke to me is When the Frost is on the Punkin by James Whitcomb Riley, that we had to memorize in 7th grade (he's buried here in Indy).
The first line:
>When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,
This immediately triggers fall in my brain. The smell of damp hay and decaying leaves. The morning chill and moisture in the air as the frost begins to quickly melt as the sun comes up.
The second line:
>And you hear the kyouck and the gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock,
If you've ever seen a turkey in person, and heard it start making a fuss, it's a pretty unique sound. They can also be quite flamboyant and arrogant as they strut around a field. I immediately think of that sound, the herky-jerky movements, them posturing to challenge you before they charge.
Later:
>They's somethin kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere
>When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here
Those first few days when fall really sets in, when you start to get that frost and the leaves are falling and you have that wonderful musky aroma of their decay, there's something almost magical about it and you just stand there drinking it in. This takes me there.
A bit later:
>But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze
>Of a crisp and sunny monring of the airly autumn days
>Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock -
>When the frost is on the punkin and fodder's in the shock.
Again, the smells and chill of that crisp and often damp air with all of those aromas starting to rise as the sun comes up. The beautiful reds and oranges and browns and champagne yellows of the leaves of the changing trees
>The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
There's something about wind blowing through standing corn that is almost ready to harvest, I read this and I hear that, 'rusty russel of the tossels' is a perfect description.
>And the raspin' of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;
As the laves have started to fall in great numbers and you traipse through them they do make a rasping sound mixed with this every so slightly wet sound as mositure trapped between them makes them peel and tangle.
>Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
>Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;
>And your cider-makin's over, and your wimmern-folks is through
I can almost feel that fuzzy, sweet, crisp taste of warm cider lighting my mouth up and warming me.
>With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and sausage, too!
Boom! Always makes me feel the cool air, catch a hint of memory of the smells of fall and want some warm biscuits slathered in apple butter and the wonderful porky-vinegar magic that is souse.
Poetry is play and learning to play with language can open up new worlds. Here is a favorite of mine.
Again by Ross Gay
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/92019/again-586e779b0...
This book[1] compares poetry to music. There are many genres and styles of music, and it is likely that you don't like all genres. Enjoying poetry is about trying to find the "genre" of poetry that moves you.
[1] Don't Read Poetry: A Book About How to Read Poems - Stephanie Burt
Also reading fiction, though how exactly it helps one is beyond me, but it offers glimpses into other worlds. For example I read recently 'The French Lieutenant's Woman', I doubt its richness of detail, and evocation of place and time, etc can ever be captured in a film or even a miniseries, and on top of it is choc-full of tid-bits of information.