We had no books in the house to speak of.  A falling-apart Child's Garden of Verses, and something illustrated by Kipling.  My mother was disdainful of people who read when they should be doing chores -- and there were always chores to do.  She read the newspaper -- all of it -- and Dad the sports page.  My wealthy uncle and aunt tried to get my cousin to read by subscribing to a bunch of young adult history books and I inherited those along with his bedroom furniture when I was nine or ten.  Mom couldn't make fun of them because she respected my uncle and aunt for being rich, and so I was allowed to devour them.  I discovered the public library, too, and  ended up persuading the librarian into letting me into the adult section.  I didn't get struck by poetry, though, until I was a Junior in High School and Sister Bea's crazy out-of-control classroom where the kids tied knots in her veil, pinned notes to each other on her habit, and rolled pennies up the floor, causing her to run up to the front of the classroom every time one hit the front wall.  She never thought to go to where the pennies came from, only to where they went.  Bored of the silliness, I read through the four-volume anthology of English literature on my own.  I remember the day when I found "The Eagle" by Tennyson and said to myself, "I wanna do that!" That was the start.

'...rolled pennies up the floor, causing her to run up to the front of the classroom every time one hit the front wall.  She never thought to go to where the pennies came from, only to where they went.'

She could have been a U.S. economist! Funny, Rick.

I loved Tennyson when I was a kid.

Maybe she was.  Isn't the late sixties when things started to get shaky?

My father was a librarian which meant I got lots of books brought home but owned very few, was read to and learnt to read before I was five.  Age ~8-11 bought books from Boots the Chemists, from 11 haunted the school library and remember best the pink-wrapped Mazo de la Roche series - heaven for being so many.   But poetry?   One night when I was ~9 I was too ill to go to a school event and to keep me entertained while on my own in the houseI was given a hitherto unseen copy of Palgrave's 'Golden Treasury' ... enjoyed the shorter stuff but was never really taken by poetry so much as prose.   Acquired several books of poetry thereafter, but never wrote it.
Not really until I found pleasure in writing with rhythm ... never thought of myself as a poet until Rob invited me here ... and now sometimes, I am.