This person is looking for English-language poems and poetry collection recs

[conuly]

The important thing is they have to be accessible, beginner-level poems for people who don't "get" poetry in English (or, perhaps, in any language).

Though I will say now what I only sort of suggested then, which is that I've never thought the point of reading anything is to understand it all. Sometimes it's enough to enjoy it, even if you miss a thing or ten. (This may be why I know so many Shakespeare quotes - from the age of six onwards I made repeated dives into our big copy of his collected works, and you know for sure I did not understand Elizabethan English at that age!)

Comments

[angelofthenorth]

I love Wendy Cope for things like that.

[bearshorty]

Children's poems usually work for that. Mother Goose and such.

[ethelmay]

Mother Goose has a lot of odd old-fashioned usages - "broke his crown" and that sort of thing. https://books.google.com/books/about/Read_Aloud_Rhymes_for_the_Very_Young.html looks promising, but presumably there are similar more recent ones.

[sovay]

I had a copy of Kenneth Koch and Kate Farrell's Talking to the Sun: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems for Young People (1985) from age three or four and it treated me well.

[movingfinger]

Frost, Stevenson, any older children's anthology, Shel Silverstein

[hafnia]

+1, would also add Jack Prelutsky to this list.

[adafrog]

Shel Silverstein!

[hudebnik]

Yes, I was thinking Frost. Most of his poems can be read at a fairly straightforward level, and you'll get something valuable out of them, and if you wish you can go back and study them in more depth and get more out of them.

Oh, and Ogden Nash is usually quite "accessible".

[movingfinger]

also, the poster's "instinctual" understanding of the phrase "width of warmth" is a valid way to get the meaning of the poem! It is imagery calling up a sensation.

no one ever likes the answer "read more x" to understand x, but for me that's how it's always worked in English and other languages; there's no magic beans

[zavodilaterrarium]

also, the poster's "instinctual" understanding of the phrase "width of warmth" is a valid way to get the meaning of the poem!

Yep, understanding and being able to explain something (whether using any words at all or making existing words simpler) are different skillsets, which is why not every capable learner is a capable teacher! No shame in that, as frustrating as it may feel.

[zavodilaterrarium]

Though I will say now what I only sort of suggested then, which is that I've never thought the point of reading anything is to understand it all.

I agree, very few pieces or topics needs to be fully dissected and analysed, at least by the average person. As with most things, it's probably more comfortable to have a balance — a bit of analysis here and there to keep yourself sharp or for fun, and relaxation at other times. I don't read much poetry though I do like writing it, and I must say, it's not uncommon for me to reread something from a while ago and be like "what on earth was i yapping about" for at least a few minutes (sometimes it never clicks and I have to analyse it like a stranger), but I still enjoy what I wrote regardless!