Experience with Poetry

I have very little experience with poetry.  I think we read maybe two poems in high school and I could not even tell you what they were called.  I know for me reading them is kind of tough because of the old english language.  I'm definitely going to have to go through and summerize what I read for each stanza to help me comprehend it easier.  I'm hoping to further my understanding of poems and what the real meaning of poems are.  I believe poetry is a way of literature that is understood through stanza's by a way of speaking differently than the norm.