Enjoy the poem. Before digging into symbols, tone, vocabulary and voices, read the poem calmly. Listen to the sounds of the words and how one idea or image slips to the next, often seamlessly. Notice the shape of the poem, the line breaks and punctuation.
Note the tone. Read a line or two of the poem and consider in what voice the speaker, or narrator, of the poem uses. Write down a few options in the poem's margin or in a separate sheet of paper. Write outraged, confused, dreamy, celebratory, timid or any other term. Take in the poem. Do not attempt interpretation on the first or second reading.
Warm up. Read poems from the nineteenth century before diving into modernist works. Every generation of poets tries to break from tradition, whether consciously or unconsciously. Romantic and Victorian poets often praise nature, God, memory and independence. When you move to modernist poetry, note differences between the two poetry eras. Though modernist poems sound and appear unlike romantic poems, modernism borrowed from past traditions.
Avoid looking for a "point." While modernist poems are certainly not pointless, they do not have the same objectives found in earlier poetry, such as moral punch in the final line or couplet in a sonnet. In William Carlos Williams's "Red Wheelbarrow," readers can make countless symbolic, literal, allegorical, and historical interpretations. The poem is purposefully vague to lend freedom and creativity to the read. Interpret that poem the way you wish. Your individual interpretation is important to the life of the poem. (Resource 1)
Learn about the poet. The poet's background, lifestyle and life events influence any poet's work. While some modernist poets, such as Wallace Stevens, worked hard to take personality and personal history out of poetry and insert philosophy, philosophy depends, in part, on personal experience. Research the poet's nationality, upbringing, beliefs, education, writers that influenced her work. Dig for other facts, such as whether they liked the movies or walks out in nature.
Study the poem like you would a painting. Remark on the details of the poem before launching into the machinery in the poem. When you visit a museum and encounter a painting, do you imagine you will understand why the painter use those colors, painted those objects, and made that figure that shape? We look at paintings repeatedly without thinking we "get" what it's "doing." Approach modernist and contemporary poems softly. Be moved, angered, excited or distressed instantly, but interpret gradually.