This may sound like a daft question, but it interests me. My brother-in-law rang me up today. He recently purchased the selected works of one of our leading national poets (I won't mention her name) after attending her reading. He found the first few poems in the book hard going and asked me, how do you read a book of poetry? Is it like a novel, when you start at the beginning and just read through to the end? Or do you just dip into it from time to time? I said, in my case, I tend to read two or three poems at a time, and then return later for more. Then again, maybe I'll read more at one go if I'm on a train journey. My question is this: what is the socially acceptable/normal number of poems that should be read at one sitting?

I guess there can be no norm. It would depend on the reader's capacity to absorb and appreciate poetry.I'm with you on reading a few at a time. Beyond that and I start to switch off. Perhaps it depends on whether you are reading for enjoyment or whether you are on a mission to educate yourself and read as much poetry as you possibly can. The world is full of the oddest people, after all...

Also it may depend on the poet. With a light hearted poet who makes you laugh, you may be tempted to glut yourself and read the lot in one sitting. Would you want to read one miserable, wrist slitting dirge after another? I very much doubt it!

I think a lot depends on how varied the poet's work is.I tried reading a Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas recently. Of the first 10 poems, 8 mentioned worms or maggots or both and each poem was more or less the same as the rest.I buried the book in the back garden. Seemed reasonable.Maybe one poem a week is about right. I prefer anthologies, unless Dylan Thomas is in them.

Read all poetry next to an open fire.

What an interesting question. I don't know the answer. It depends, perhaps? The first time I read Spike Milligan's Silly Verse for Kids, I read it from cover to cover then went back to my favourites (A Thousand Hairy Savages, and String) to re-read and enjoy anew.
I think that's my favoured option. If it's Palgraves Golden Treasury, I look up my favourites but then force myself to read one I have not appreciated before. Similarly with McGough, Henry Or Paton; re-read favourites then look at ones I had not previously appreciated. New collections, I tend to open at any page and read the poem thereon, then repeat for other parts of the book; random, I suppose.
I don't much like reading all of the poems at once in a new anthology, preferring to save some, in case I get hungry later.

Try reading the poems aloud; for that, you might need a room of your own or an understanding family, but it actually helps to hear the sound of the poem, because that's part of its effect.

And don't expect to completely grasp it first time. It's not a story (though it may contain one) and it doesn't have a neat little summary at the end that tells you what to think (or it might have but in that case it's A Bad Poem.)

Read it more than once.

I tend to overdo it by reading too many within an anthology front to back, with a halo effect that the first ones always seem better than the later ones. I find it's best then to re-read them more randomly.
I do agree with SW though that reading out loud helps against missing something in the poem.
On another level poems do seem to me to be very re-usable items. I have read the odd novel twice but I have re-read many poems dozens of times with no dilution of enjoyment.

I tend to skim through looking for lines, or even words that intrigue me and then read those poems first. If it hasn't grabbed me by oh...about line three, then I'm off skimming again. I often check out the last line first. I really hate having to 'work' at a poem...It needs to sing 'something' clearly to me...but I don't mind the oblique or obscure so long as the language is great. There are loads of poems I love that I'm still not entirely sure what they are about! : )

Jx

With great anticipation and great trepidation -
with as much as an open mind as I can muster.
usually away from other stimulation - except perhaps for 'mood enhancers' like background music and a usually welcome beverage (or several)
sometimes I go over the titles first and see what catches my attention
then I go from the shortest and work my way to the longest poems, rarely ever reading page by page from front to end.