How should the form of a poem influence my reading?

This question comes up a lot with students who will tell you that they don't "get" poetry, and don't like to read it on their own time. The answer is that poets didn't choose to write their thoughts as a poem out of contrariness, but because their medium is an essential part of their message. This means that a holistic reading of a poem cannot be a reading that would do as well for the same language deployed as prose, without line breaks; it must account for the shape of a poem on the page or its "concrete" presence, the historical tradition invoked by any choice of an established form, the emphasis or aural effects indicated by the choice of metre and the disruptions that line breaks always entail. If we presume access to prose forms, we need to make meaning from the choice of poetic ones instead, and pay as close attention to their technical realities as film students pay to the use of the camera.