Read the poem once out loud, all the way through without stopping, even if you don't understand it.
Highlight or underline any words that you do not understand while reading the poem a second time. Look up the words in a dictionary to discover their meaning.
Read the poem out loud again, considering the meanings of the words you did not understand before.
Look at all of the descriptive words, and adjectives, in the poem to determine what they are describing. Poems often use words to describe the taste, touch, smell, sound and appearance of the subject of the poem.
Find out whose point of view the poem is from by asking yourself what the poem is describing. Some poems are written from the point of view of the author, while others are written from the point of view of objects or animals. Understanding whose point of view the poem is from can help you determine its meaning.
Ask yourself what the author is trying to say with the poem; determine what the poem's purpose is. Some poems have a clear purpose such as teaching the reader something or asking him to look at a situation from a new point of view. Other poems might be abstract and more difficult to determine the purpose of.
Read the poem out loud again, considering the information you have learned through this process.