Recommend poetry to me?

So here’s the thing: I read very little (basically no) poetry. When I find a thing I like, I really like it . . . but the rest of it more or less bounces off my skull without leaving a mark. Result is that I don’t read much poetry, because the odds of me finding one of those things that will embed itself in my brain instead of poinging off my cranium are too low to make it worth the effort.

But! I have an internet at my disposal!

So those of you who are lovers of poetry: please recommend things to me that you think I would like. To assist in narrowing down that field, here are things I know I like in poetry:

* Narrative, because brain likey story.
* Aural devices, such as meter, rhyme, alliteration, and so forth. (With exceedingly rare exceptions, I bounce hardest of all off free verse.)
* Generally a darker mood; not sure why, but poems about how happy somebody is tend to draw less of my attention.
* Allusions to things I know about, be it mythology or pop culture or what have you.

I would also be interested in seeing the poetically-minded among you ramble on about why you like poetry: how you read it, what you think about when you consider a poem, etc. Theoretically we had a “poetry appreciation” segment in my high school English classes, but, well. High school.

I’ll put specific examples of what I like behind the cut, for space reasons.

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Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.