may I also make a suggestion based on my experience with poems for multi-aged/ varied skills group?

test run the The Favorite Poems Project website. (I was going to mention this elsewhere, as Robert Pinsky has been on board, but it may serve you better.)

http://www.favoritepoem.org/

I've been using the site almost weekly since I discovered it last year. (we homeschool.) One kid chooses a poem. After we read the poem aloud, I scroll it out to the place in the vid where the person (or people) read the poem for us. We discuss the poem. We also discuss what we imagine will be the connection between the reader and the poem. (interesting to discover how many of our preconceived ideas are challenged and how many hit nails, in this part of the process.) then we listen to the reader describe their interp of the poem, why it's important to them and anything else about the connection they might convey.

i love the process because:

1. it's poetry

2. the kids have become convinced that personal connections to special poems is a valid response to poetry.

3. the readers give insights we wouldn't have considered.

i guess you can't advocate gunplay and drunk driving, but a real fav here was Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump by David Bottoms <link>

(we had MaryAnn to thank for that one. she also sent a poem about traveling to ieland, which i can't precisely recall except that my teens got a certain pleasure reading, "focking idjot." whenever MA has sent a list like the one she offered you, we discover new favorites. I'll be appropriating the above list, too.)