How should I introduce my younger sister to poetry?

[Emilia of Byzantium]

My sister (aged 15) recently told me that the next time I visit the library I should get her a book of poems to read.

The problem is, I have no idea where to start. So far, she's just glanced through three books I have right now, and she thought Emily Dickinson, W B Yeats, and Billy Collins were boring. These are the only three, aside from Frost and W C Williams, who's collected works I've ever borrowed because when it comes to poetry I do most of my reading online.

She said she doesn't like narrative poems or anything that doesn't rhyme. She liked Wordsworth okay, but doesn't want something that's too abstract, I guess, that requires too much analysis. Someone approachable, not to put her off reading.

Should I show her a poet or a poetic form? Any suggestions? Thank you.
Yeah, she's read a lot of Shel Silverstein and some Jack Prelutske]y. I mean, that's practically it. I didn't mention them just because she's already read them, and I wanted something a little less childish, you know? I like them both, though; I loved the peanut butter sandwich poem, and the one about the boy who ate everything

I thought of Langston Hughes, but not Maya Angelou.
To be honest, I don't know what at all she likes. She doesn't read poetry. Probably the last she read was in elementary school. Recently, she read a book where the main character reads Yeats and Wordsworth, which is why she looked at the collection. I didn't give it to her, she just took it

Most of the preferences she told me I know are initial. Not definitive, I mean. I just want to show her something that'll keep her interested. Something sort of like I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud.

 

[classmate]

You can get her an anthology that will let her sample the work of many different poets and find some that she doesn't consider boring.

If she prefers formal poetry -- poetry that uses rhyme and meter -- you can see if your local library subscribes to the print journal "Measure." And you can introduce your sister to the online journals "The Barefoot Muse," "Mezzo Cammin," "Unsplendid," and "14 by 14."

http://www.barefootmuse.com/

http://www.mezzocammin.com/

http://www.unsplendid.com/

http://www.14by14.com/

 

[ponders_99]

I love poetry as well. I also found that the classic poets were boring when I was younger. I actually used those poems as motivation to write my own poems (for my own personal use).
It is time for your sister to go to the library (possibly with you) to find some poetry that she likes. I suggest that she take out a bunch of books and read randomly through them to find what interests her. I will admit that I find collections to be "a bit heavy" for someone who is just discovering what poetry is all about.
I apologize as maybe my answer is not very specific as the previous (first) answer, but it is road to understanding and enjoying poetry.

 

[Hypocorism]

I would try the Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge to see if there are any poems in particular she likes in it-- but I don't normally expect to like more than 30% of the poems in a book unless I know the poet's work well, and I hope she would approach these books with the same expectation and avoid trying to finish reading poems that are unenjoyable. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (in that book) can be such an odd pleasure, but it is narrative-- I would be curious if the interdiction against narrative turns out to be a little bit less general. I think you might have a good chance with a number of the poems in the complete poems of E.A. Poe, which ought to be a slim volume: Dreamland particularly has a strange appeal. I would probably stay away from collections of sonnets unless she likes a particular writer very much. If she doesn't mind light verse, I love Eliot's volume, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. If she liked the Alice books, she might like Lewis Carroll's verses-- of course if she hasn't read those two books, I think all of their poems are wonderful fun. That's just a start of course-- you've not given much information and what to read depends a great deal on what she likes. If she ever wants to try narrative verse, the Oxford Book of Narrative Verse is a good collection with so much variety that there will be something enjoyable in it if she is ever likely to like that genre at all.

Edit: I came very close to echoing Goldfish in recommending Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience-- I love them very much but the collection is, like Blake himself, a bit on the wacky side, and so despite they fact that the poems are deceptively simple I am not sure how easy they are to enjoy without entering in to Blake's frame of mind. I certainly second the recommendation of the Poison Tree, however, which is a perennial favourite.

 

[Victoria's Little Secret]

Have you shown her Maya Angelou's poems? Langston Hughes? Jack Prelutsky? Shel Silverstein. They all have poems that I think fit into what you're looking for.

Phenomenal Woman
Still I Rise
Dream Deferred
Be Glad Your Nose is on Your Face
Bear in There
Messy Room

There's Ogden Nash's A Word to Husbands. It's pretty funny, straight to the point, and rhymes. There's also a pretty a day by E. E. Cummings. A Poison Tree by William Blake is also nice. Rudyard Kipling's If is one I think she'll like. Sara Teasdale is another great poet.

Anyway, these are just a few.

I think you should show her the poems that you think she'll like. If she likes them, then'll she'll search the poet and see if she likes anymore of his/her poems.

Ode on Solitude by Alexander Pope
When Lovely Woman Stoops to Folly by Oliver Goldsmith
So We'll Go No More a-Roving by Lord Byron
She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron
The Death-Bed by Thomas Hood
Song by Hartley Coleridge
Early Death by Hartley Coleridge
The Arrow and the Song by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
There Was a Little Girl by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Three Arrows by Edward FitzGerald
How Doth the Little Crocodile by Lewis Carroll
Evolution by John Banister Tabb
The Mid-Day Moon by John Tabb, as well The Shadow.
Invictus by William Hernest Henley
The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus
The Night Has a Thousand Eyes by Francis William Bourdillon
Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Winds of Fate by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
A.E. Housman's Into My Heart an Air That Kills, When I Was One-and-Twenty, With Rue My Heart is Laden, and Loveliest of Trees.
The Purple Cow by Gelett Burgess
Cinq Ans Apres by Gelette Burgess
E.A. Robinson's Richard Cory
Life, We Wear the Mask, and Silence by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Here is more: A Walk After Dark by W.H. Auden
Another Time by W.H. Auden
Petals by Amy Lowell
The Surprise and Stay by Ingeborg Bachmann
The Waking and My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke
Television by Roald Dahl, although it's a bit childish.
Symbol and Blue Winter by Robert Francis
Longing by Matthew Arnold
All Lovely Things by Conrad Aiken
Rebecca by Hilaire Belloc
A Tale, Man Alone, and Juan's Song by Louise Bogan
Change by Change and A Woman's Shortcomings by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Don't Fear Death by Aleksandr Blok
He, who was born by Aleksandr Blok
A Song by Laurence Binyon
For The Fallen by Laurence Binyon

I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud is one of my favorite poems, by the way.

Sorry I cannot recommend poetry books. Like you, most of the poems I read are online. All the ones I've recommended are ones I've enjoyed reading, though.