Not everyone likes poetry. I happen to love reading poetry, but sometimes with the way poetry is taught in high school, people absolutely hate poetry. And if they don't hate it, they're scared of it. I've selected five of my favorite poems to help introduce you to some good poetry.

1. "Let Me Tell You What a Poem Brings" by Juan Felipe Herrera

Before you go further,

let me tell you what a poem brings,

first, you must know the secret, there is no poem

to speak of, it is a way to attain a life without boundaries,

yes, it is that easy, a poem, imagine me telling you this,

instead of going day by day against the razors, well,

the judgments, all the tick-tock bronze, a leather jacket

sizing you up, the fashion mall, for example, from

the outside you think you are being entertained,

when you enter, things change, you get caught by surprise,

your mouth goes sour, you get thirsty, your legs grow cold

standing still in the middle of a storm, a poem, of course,

is always open for business too, except, as you can see,

it isn’t exactly business that pulls your spirit into

the alarming waters, there you can bathe, you can play,

you can even join in on the gossip—the mist, that is,

the mist becomes central to your existence.

2. "Feeling Fucked Up" by Etheridge Knight

Lord she’s gone done left me done packed / up and split

and I with no way to make her

come back and everywhere the world is bare

bright bone white crystal sand glistens

dope death dead dying and jiving drove

her away made her take her laughter and her smiles

and her softness and her midnight sighs—

Fuck Coltrane and music and clouds drifting in the sky

fuck the sea and trees and the sky and birds

and alligators and all the animals that roam the earth

fuck marx and mao fuck fidel and nkrumah and

democracy and communism fuck smack and pot

and red ripe tomatoes fuck joseph fuck mary fuck

god jesus and all the disciples fuck fanon nixon

and malcolm fuck the revolution fuck freedom fuck

the whole muthafucking thing

all i want now is my woman back

so my soul can sing

The moon breaks its mirrors on the ruins as Beirut makes crutches out of blood and ashes and hobbles with them.

It’s true. The sky has chains around her feet, and the stars have daggers strapped to their waists.

The day rubs its eyes, disbelieving what it sees.

Weep, Beirut, wipe your tears with the horizon’s kerchief. You wrote the sky again, but you were wrong, and now your wrongs write you.

Do you have another alphabet?

Before the wig and coat

were the rivers, the arterial rivers,

the mountain ranges, in whose weary wave

the condor or the snow appeared unstirring:

the thickness of the humidity, the unnamed

thunderclap, the planetary pampas.

Man was earth, a vessel, the eyelid

of the quivering clay, a form from the mud of the earth,

a Carib pitcher, a chibcha stone,

an imperial chalice or an Araucanian silica.

Tender and bleeding he was, but on the hilt

of his moist crystal weapon,

the initials of the earth were

inscribed.

No one

could remember them later: the wind

forgot them, the language of the water

interred, the keys were lost

or inundated by silence or blood.

Life was not lost, pastoral brothers.

But as a savage rose,

a red drop fell to the depths,

and the lamp of the land was extinguished.

I am here to tell history.

Since the peace of the buffalo

until the lashed sands

of final earth, in the accumulated surf

of antarctic light,

and for the burrows embedded off the cliffs

of somber Venezuelan peace,

I searched for you, my father,

young soldier of shadows and brass,

or you, nuptial plant, indomitable hair,

caiman mother, metallic dove.

I, Inca from mud,

touched the stone and said:

Who

waits for me? And I squeezed my hand

around a fistful of empty glass.

But I traveled among zapotec flowers

and the light was as gentle as a stag,

and the shade was like a green eyelid.

My earth without a name, without America,

equinoctial stamen, purple spear,

your aroma winds up my roots

into the chalice I nursed, into the finest

word still not yet born from my mouth.

5. "One Today" by Richard Blanco

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,

peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces

of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth

across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.

One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story

told by our silent gestures moving across windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors,

each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:

pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,

fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows

begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper --

bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,

on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives --

to teach geometry, or ring up groceries as my mother did

for twenty years, so I could write this poem for all of us today.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,

the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:

equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,

the 'I have a dream' we all keep dreaming,

or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won't explain

the empty desks of twenty children marked absent

today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light

breathing color into stained glass windows,

life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth

onto the steps of our museums and park benches

as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk

of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat

and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills

in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands

digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands

as worn as my father's cutting sugarcane

so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains

mingled by one wind -- our breath. Breathe. Hear it

through the day's gorgeous din of honking cabs,

buses launching down avenues, the symphony

of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,

the unexpected songbird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,

or whispers across cafe tables, Hear: the doors we open

each day for each other, saying: hello, shalom,

buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días

in the language my mother taught me -- in every language

spoken into one wind carrying our lives

without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed

their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked

their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:

weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report

for the boss on time, stitching another wound

or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,

or the last floor on the Freedom Tower

jutting into the sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes

tired from work: some days guessing at the weather

of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love

that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother

who knew how to give, or forgiving a father

who couldn't give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight

of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always, always -- home,

always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon

like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop

and every window, of one country -- all of us --

facing the stars

hope -- a new constellation

waiting for us to map it,