How should I read a poem?

My first suggestion is to read the poem out loud. I can remember being terrified of poetry when I was studying at GCSE. Why does a poem feel less accessible than a novel? Lets take a look at Simon Armitage's ‘Mother Any Distance Greater..’ for instance. Read this poem through once, out loud, and start to take notes on anything that strikes you. It can be anything: a particular rhyme or line, an image created, or what message you feel is being conveyed. By making these notes you are immediately paying attention to the content, style, and effect of the poem which is key. From here, we take the poem line by line and write down the ways in which Armitage uses language, for instance the first line tells us who the speaker is addressing, his mother, so we can start to unpack the significance of this by asking why. Poetry is more than its surface meaning, it demands more from us than just a simple glance over, and it is for this exact reason that reading poetry can be so rewarding. Poetry is a construct with an aim to make us think deeper and higher. Like all art, whether it is Picasso or Banksy, poetry makes us think about what we are reading: poetry leads us to question what we are reading.