Did you ever read any Canadian poetry?
Some of our more celebrated poets were a little more literal, or prosaic, or largely storytellers. A prime example is Al Purdy (here performed by both himself reading, and in a dramatic presentation by Gord Downie [RIP]. Hopefully this is easily digestible as a sampling over pointing you to pages with words on them):
If you liked that you should dive down the YouTube rabbit hole. There is at least one dramatic reading by Gordon Pinsent as well:
It demonstrates that with just a few subtle linguistic cues the human mind can be made to simulate an entire world. And, more importantly, if those cues are well chosen that world will be complete with memory, emotion, sound, light, and movement. Not because those things are in the poem itself, they exist in your response to the poem as the negative space is filled in by your imagination. In that way poets are engineers not of language but of the human mind.
I recall memorizing and composing poems with my mother on long car trips growing up. Some of which I can still recite. I remember revising a poem for school, sat on the toilet, next to a shower on full hot, because the heater was out and the house was freezing cold. Birds chirping in the morning remind me of the line "And smale fowles maken melodye that slepen al the night with open ye" in the voice of a memorable teacher who predicted the only thing I'd recall from his class was the intro to the Canterbury Tales.
Poetry is a lot like idiomatic code. It looks right. It feels right. There's a thrill when a terse expression efficiently accomplishes exactly what's needed.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0074FSXKI/ And after that I read this which I also appreciated https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003L203TW/
The work that greatly helped me to appreciate poetry better was, "Understanding Poetry" by Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brookes.
I would rewrite a lot of this now for general quality, but I think my thesis is sound:
https://albertstimson.wordpress.com/2015/01/23/why-poetry/
Of note: this takes a fairly strict definition of what poetry even is, and I would argue that a lot of things that superficially look like poems don't accomplish any of what makes a poem be worthwhile as something different from prose.
I believe English is best spoken; if you really want to understand poetry, perhaps get involved with spoken poetry.
Caveat: I am more of a literal engineer type, personally I don't see much pleasure in poetry, although I admire the occasional evocative piece.