"A Poets Guide to Poetry"

Has anyone read this introductory text by Mary Kinzie? I think it's a little above me at this point and was looking for something that might give a beginner some help at identifying the structural aspects of a poem. I mean, I think I can understand Shakespeare, Shelley, Yeats, etc. but I read something like T.S. Eliot and feel helpless to be perfectly honest. How can I sort of pull myself out of this situation and begin to appreciate these works, or more precisely: begin to pinpoint the source of why I already do appreciate the works of Shakespeare, Shelly, etc.? How are these folks different from other poets, because to be perfectly honest I couldn't tell you aside from some vague understanding of how hexameters work. Where did they break from those that preceeded them? What and who were there influences? How did they use convention to meet their subject matter? I'm interested so any help at all would be greatly appreciated.