Whatever your feelings regarding poetry, there is no substitute for thinking hard and refusing to give in.
Read the title
Use a dictionary to check any unfamiliar words. What does the title suggest to you?
Read the whole poem
Read it all the way through, even if some or all of it doesn't seem to make sense.
Be open to possibilities
Don't decide too quickly that you know what the poem is definitely about, or that you will never understand it.
Read the poem carefully
Read through from the start of the poem to the first full stop. Make a note of what you think is happening. Do the same thing for the rest of the poem.
Read through the whole poem again
Is it starting to make sense? If necessary, use a dictionary for any words you don't understand. Remember that some words have more than one meaning.
Poetry
Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain, quatrain poem attri...
The Poet Tree in Cabbagetown TorontoPoint of view
Who is telling the story of the poem? Has the poet invented a character or characters to tell the story? Is the poem in the first person (I) or the third person (he/she/it)?
Tone of voice
Does the poem seem to suggest a certain mood?
e.g. Sad, Angry, Happy, Scared etc.
Literal or metaphorical?
Look at the concrete nouns used in the poem (words which refer to actual things you can feel, touch, see, hear or smell). Are you meant to imagine that they are actually there, or are they symbols or images which stand for something else?
e.g. 'The doll slept in her cot.'
Is this actually a doll, or is it one way of talking about a baby girl asleep?
The meaning
Does the poem tell a factual story about a real event, or does it try to show how the poet feels about something?...