Reddit reviews The Norton Introduction to Poetry

I've always found the Norton collections to be a solid starting point for good poetry.

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Poem-Norton-Anthology-Poetic/dp/0393321789/
http://www.amazon.com/Norton-Anthology-Poetry-4th/dp/0393968200
http://www.amazon.com/Norton-Anthology-Modern-Contemporary-Poetry
http://www.amazon.com/Norton-Introduction-Poetry-Alison-Booth/dp/0393928578/

are all excellent introductions to reading. Very broadly speaking, classical poetry is more focused on rhyme and imagery that many can comprehend (albeit with some effort), while modern poetry is more focused on free verse and word choices, and tends to use imagery that's more self-referential (that's just my experience, though).

In terms of writing, I'd suggest scanning through /r/OCPoetry to see poetry written from a mostly modern, mostly amateur perspective.

What you're saying so far is basically akin to 'I want to know more about the ocean and everything living in it/relating to it. I know what a tuna, a blue whale, a great white shark, and an octopus are, but I don't know where to go to get information about them and learn about them. Can you guys help me find good sources for everything from marine biology to oceanography and everything in between?'

As such, my suggestion for the Norton's. If you find something that you like, you can help narrow your search field a bit, and it'll be a heckuva lot easier to help (in your reading search, that is).

Writing's a whole different ballgame, and I defer to /u/jessicay and/or /u/ActualNameIsLana for (possibly) helping you out a bit more on that topic, as they've far more experience than me.

First off, good on you for taking the initiative.

For introductory books, I'd recommend Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled. Now, I haven't read it myself, but it's been mentioned on this sub often enough for me to feel comfortable mentioning it. It might also be a good idea to pick up a miscellaneous collection of poems in order to get an understanding of the variety and depth of the subject matter. A more informal volume might be something edited by Garrison Keiler, like Good Poems. While that specific book is more bent towards Modern American poets, there's still a lot to draw from. A more academic book would be The Norton Anthology of Poetry ot The Norton Introduction to Poetry, which has a lot more to choose from. These two also give you a bit of structure – my copy of the Introduction has clear headings, like "Symbol" or "The Sonnet," with neat little introductory essays and poems chosen to help you understand how these concepts work. That being said, Norton tends to be a little expensive, though if you live in a college town you can probably find a cheaper copy. The benefit of these kinds of collections lies in helping you to find a poet whose style or subject matter you particularly like.

Regarding online sources, there's The Poetry Foundation, which has archives of poems and articles on the poets themselves. Their monthly articles can vary from the interesting to the banal, however, so keep your bullshit detector on. You can probably also find podcasts that deal with the subject. A personal favorite of mine is called "Entitled Opinions," and is run by a professor of Italian Studies over at Stanford by the name of Robert Harrison. Mind you, this particular podcast deals with philosophy and literature as well, so while I'd recommend listening to all their episodes you would have to do a little bit of searching in order to find a particular episode on poetry – though I would reccomend the one on "Dante and Prufrock." I imagine these kind of examinatioms would be useful because they can give you a sense of what poetry 'does' or 'how it means' beyond a surface play with words.

As for the writing of poetry, the first thing I'd recommend is that you read and meditate on a lot of poetry, good and bad, in order to get a sense of how its all done. Learn certain conventions – like, say, that of the sonnet – in order to see how poets follow through with them, or how they play with them. Learn prosody so you can understand how the precise meter, or 'beat,' of each line can affect the reader. I can't really give concrete advice with regards to this, save for a metaphorical "go west, young man!"

The Norton Introduction to Poetry is more expensive ($60,) but is a more academic introduction to the form, structure and interpretation of poetry.