WHAT IS POETRY

People too often assume they're at fault if they don't appreciate a poem. I think they should trust their own instincts. When you find a poet whose style you like, read everything he or she has written. It's really not important to like all poetry, but it's important to start to trust your taste in it and enjoy it. 
How to Read Poetry
Introduction to Poetry

16cf8bf93961f6581170f540b3aa78c3189fee91

G. M. Hopkins

“The Windhover”:

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-

dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!”

Border Line
by Langston Hughes

I used to wonder
About living and dying–
I think the difference lies
Between tears and crying.

I used to wonder
About here and there–
I think the distance
Is nowhere.

“That time of year thou may’st in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

“WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN’D ASTRONOMER” BY WALT WHITMAN

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

'The New Colossus' by Emma Lazarus.

'Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, 

With conquering limbs astride from land to land; 

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand 

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame 

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name  

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand 

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command 

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. 

'Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!' cries she 

With silent lips. 'Give me your tired, your poor, 

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, 

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!' 

“Sonnet 73

That time of year thou may’st in me behold 

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, 

Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.”

 “In me thou see’st the twilight of such day, 

As after sunset fadeth in the west, 

Which by and by black night doth take away, 

Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest. 

In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire 

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, 

As the death-bed whereon it must expire 

Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by. 

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, 

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.” 

"Time does not bring relief..."

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied 

Who told me time would ease me of my pain! 

I miss him in the weeping of the rain; 

I want him at the shrinking of the tide; 

The old snows melt from every mountain-side, 

And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane; 

But last year's bitter loving must remain 

Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide! 

There are a hundred places where I fear 

To go,--so with his memory they brim! 

And entering with relief some quiet place 

Where never fell his foot or shone his face 

I say, "There is no memory of him here!" 

And so stand stricken, so remembering him!