I can readily admit that well into my 20's I could say, without hesitation, that I didn't read or particularly like poetry. I was ambivalent at best. It is often said that Americans in general don't appreciate poetry. My schooling throughout the 60's and early 70's pretty much reinforced that notion in me. By the time I graduated from high school my experience with poetry was largely a vague remembrance of nursery rhymes and exposure to more adult "romantic" poetry (i.e. 18th, and 19th century poetry). I don't really care that much about romantic poetry. It really didn't fit with the mood of the 60's and 70's which was dominated by social revolution, the Vietnam war, rock and roll, Watergate, and disco (in the 70's). One exception I made for myself was the purchase of a complete works of Robert Frost when I entered college. It must have been my New England upbringing but the flow of the words in Frost's poems resonated with me. I've always had a complete works of Frost and have always enjoyed randomly dipping into it's pages.
In my late 20's (exact dates are a little fuzzy now that I'm in my 50's) I joined the San Francisco Bay Area Great Books Discussion Groups. Our regular monthly meetings focused on prose works but once a year all of the discussion groups would meet for a long weekend at the Asilomar conference center in Monterey, CA. We would read and discuss poetry on Friday night, an essay on Saturday morning, a novel on Saturday night, and a play on Sunday morning. I attended poetry discussion just because it was on the schedule. Once there I was exposed to people (mostly older retired persons) who were genuinely excited about poetry. They dove into the discussion with excitement and insight. After a couple of years I started paying more attention to the poetry and joining into the discussion myself. After 4-5 years I purchased a "How to Read Poetry" type book/anthology and signed up for the Great Books poetry weekend. The poetry weekend was a long weekend with four discussions focused on poetry. The first year I went because one of the discussions was to be on T.S. Eliots'"The Wasteland". Little did I know how difficult that poem would be. Let's just say I that I still didn't "get" the "The Wasteland" that year but I was hooked on poetry from then on. I bought books of poetry, attended poetry readings, and served several years on the poetry committee selecting poems for the poetry weekend and even leading discussions. While I am no way a scholar I have now learned something about poetry and truly appreciate it.
