It's very rare that I like a poem on first reading. It has only happened twice. Both times it was related to having an understanding of the poem when I first read it. Nearly always I have to read poetry closely to get it. I have to analyze it word by word and line by line and write about it.
One of the poems that this happened with, the reason I liked it and appreciated it on first reading was because someone specifically gave it to me as it related to some things we had been talking about. That poem was 'Ars Poetica' by Archibald MacLeish. It's a poem about poetry.
The other poem I liked on first reading was 'In the Waiting Room' by Elizabeth Bishop. I liked it because it conveyed a meaning that was completely irrational but made absolute sense to me. I had my own interpretation of it and I believed in that interpretation.
There was that mix of familiarity and unfamiliarity that makes great music, art and writing. You recognize something that you already know - something you've actually thought or felt - but it's not a boring familiarity like, I already knew that, because there's something new about it as well.
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