You have to admire the boldness of our speaker. Right off the bat, in the very first line, the speaker announces with no hesitation or apology that she dislikes poetry…in a poem entitled "Poetry." What's more, this "I hate poems" poem is so good that it's been reprinted in countless anthologies and read in countless literature classrooms around the world.
Our speaker is clearly someone who knows about poems and has probably read and/or written a lot of them, which is why her declaration shocks us. She knows it will shock us, but she's going to be brutally honest anyway, so we'll know she's being sincere when she explains why she still manages to find value in poetry. We picture the speaker as a really cool literature teacher. No-nonsense and down to earth, she doesn't use confusing or difficult language and keeps her tone casual, but she also gets her point across that poetry is definitely worth reading.