You say you are interested in poetry and wonder how to get started. I have been trying to expand my own repertoire for several years. It has been much harder than expected. But here is the method I am using:
(1) Respect the genre. Poetry has a history parallel to literature. Take a moment to learn the periods. Chances are, you'll like some periods and not others. And knowing who is who in the periods you like will save you time. It will allow you to zero in on the poets you either like or need to try.
(2) Rely on the experts. Poetry is a generous discipline, meaning that people that love it are happy to talk about what they love. Get a list and start working it. You can get a list from poetryfoundation.org or scan the table of contents in The Oxford Book of English or American Poetry or just google lists online or college lit syllabi until you can construct your own. But this is going to be true even on the micro level. When you find a poet you want to dig more deeply into, like Frost, for example, or Pope, you don't have time to read it all. Go find a list of the best and begin there. If you finish those and you still want to loiter--which is good--you'll be ready, then.
(3) Like theater, poetry is in the ear far more than in the eye. If you can hear a poem, hear it: on the Poetry Foundation website, YouTube, the internet, Spotify--anywhere! If you can read a poem aloud, do it. I recommend taking a look at Tracy K. Smith's the Slowdown and Pádraig Ó Tuama's Poetry Unbound for their combination of audio and selection by a master poet.
(4) You cannot nor will you swallow poetry in a lifetime. Especially in a discipline where exposure and intimacy are required for knowledge. The quicker you can lay down a general understanding, find a period and then a poet that appeals to you, and begin rooting around, the better. But you will never get it all. You will always be conscious of how much you don't know.
(5) Time. As in a museum, you are walking past items, but something catches you. Obey that. Say you are reading a list of twenty-five recommended Dickinson poems and you are just reading them and nothing is catching. But then one does; "The revery alone will do / if bees are few." Stay with that poem until it is done with you, and then move on. "Attention is the beginning of devotion" (Mary Oliver). You might keep a small notebook of the ones that do.
(6) Putting some poetry any poetry on your shelf is tremendous. Do it now. Grab some chapbook of a poet you have never heard of and tuck it in somewhere. A slim volume of verse gives such a nice, briny flavor to your library. And it will be there when you need something with coffee.
(7) Finally, poetry is the work of a people. It comes in pairs. Perhaps there are bits of verse tucked in between rocks in the Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacán or scratched into the stony roof of the Duomo di Milano. But even there, a god sees. Find someone who loves poetry. Ask them to share what they love, and you do the same. That, in the love poem of St. Paul, is the better way.
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