There are specific reasons why certain poems do not suck. However, it can be difficult (unless you are an expert on the subject or pretending to be) to identify these, as they often change depending on the poem.

This assertion makes sense.

“Locking Yourself Out, Then Trying To Get Back In” by Raymond Carver does not suck. Being in the second person, rather than sounding whiny or accusative as is often the case in these matters, makes it familiar. The poem seems to be a story related to you by a friend. “You know how it is,” the poem says. “You simply go out and shut the door / without thinking.”

“Oh sure. Been there,” you say.

When the poem’s speaker looks in at his room and talks to inanimate objects, it is charming. (Because everyone speaks to inanimate objects whether one admits to it or not. Familiarity!) But most of all, there's a dry description of the scene and of the speaker’s efforts to re-enter, mixed with sudden insights into the speaker’s thoughts, which pushes the poem beyond not sucking to being quite good. In fact, the complete normal every-day-ness of the descriptions is what make the poem stick with you. Several simple lines stand out in the poem as if they were bolded. "This is not like downstairs, I thought."

In a few days these lines will come back at a different angle and you will see that hidden behind the phrases that seemed so familiar is an entire other level, and perhaps another behind that one. Though in high school we all hated trying to find the symbolism behind the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, nowadays we can all appreciate a good bit of nuance, particularly if no one is grading us on how quickly we figure it out.

Luckily, even with the multiple levels in this poem, Carver is not a poet for the pretentious, which means he and I are quite a good fit.

If you go here, you can not only read but also listen to the poem.

Excerpt:

You simply go out and shut the door
without thinking. And when you look back
at what you’ve done
it’s too late. If this sounds
like the story of a life, okay.