How to Get Into Reading Poetry
Quick answer: How to get into reading poetry: where to start, anthologies and poets that welcome beginners, and simple habits that build real taste within a month.
Get into reading poetry by starting with anthologies and single poems rather than whole collections, reading aloud, and giving yourself full permission to abandon anything that bores you. One poem a day for a month will teach you your own taste faster than any list of classics, and taste is the thing that turns duty into appetite.
Most people who think they dislike poetry actually dislike how it was taught to them: as a code to crack under exam conditions. Read on your own terms and the experience changes. Nobody will test you. You are allowed to love one line and shrug at the rest of the poem, which is, quietly, how poets read too.
Start with streams, not shelves
A whole collection by one poet is a deep pool; start in the shallows instead. Poem-a-day emails from the Poetry Foundation or the Academy of American Poets put one poem in your inbox each morning, no commitment. The podcast Poetry Unbound takes a single short poem per episode and walks through it warmly. Anthologies work the same way on paper: 'The Rattle Bag', edited by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes, and 'Staying Alive', edited by Neil Astley, are famous precisely because they were built for browsing, not study.
Poets who open the door
Some poets are natural gateways because their surfaces are clear while their depths are real.
Read aloud, reread, and keep what you love
Poems are scores for the voice, so read aloud when you can; half of what seems obscure on the page resolves in the mouth. Reread anything that snags you, because poems are built for the second pass in a way novels are not. And start a private anthology: a notebook or phone file where you copy every poem that genuinely lands. Within a month it becomes a map of your taste, and within a year it becomes the most honest book you own.
Permission slips
You do not have to understand a poem fully to enjoy it, any more than you need music theory to enjoy a song. You do not have to like the acknowledged greats yet, or ever. And you are allowed to read poetry because you might want to write it; most readers who stay become scribblers eventually, and the traffic between reading and writing runs both ways. Follow pleasure. It is the only guide that keeps you reading in month two.
What poets can take from this
- Subscribe to one poem-a-day email and give it thirty seconds each morning.
- Read aloud; the voice solves what the eye cannot.
- Abandon boring poems without guilt.
- Copy every poem you love into one notebook.
- Reread anything that snags you, even slightly.
- When one poet lands, read their selected poems next, not their newest book.
Try it yourself
Collect five poems you genuinely like within one week, from anywhere. Then write a six-line poem that steals one move, a repeated word, a strange comparison, a sudden ending, from your favourite of the five.
Questions
What is the best poetry book for beginners?
A broad anthology beats any single-poet book at the start: 'Staying Alive' and 'The Rattle Bag' are the standard recommendations for good reason. They let you sample dozens of voices and follow whichever ones land.
Why do I not understand poetry?
Usually because school taught you to hunt hidden meanings rather than to listen. Read aloud, take the poem literally first, and accept partial understanding; poems are designed for rereading, not decoding on sight.
How many poems should I read a day?
One is plenty, read twice. Poetry rewards small regular doses far more than binges, and a single poem a day builds a serious reading life within a year.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
Enter a Writory poetry contest
Enter the September contest and have your own poem read and scored. That first entry makes you a Writorian.