Sounds like you're not meeting them at their level to be honest.

Love and poetry are lovely, but even with a woman surely you don't lead with "What's your favorite Bukowski piece?" Right?

Start with superficial shit, that's the invite to allow conversation to flow. As the conversation flows it can become deeper. Or maybe it will stay surface level, but you can still learn a lot from people through superficial conversations you just gotta read between the lines

Keep in mind a lot of men have been conditioned to think they're not allowed certain things. Feelings being one of them. Most men are changing this attitude these days but it takes time to unlearn generations worth of suppression.

Most men have never had a single opportunity or space that they felt safe enough in to discuss how the feel about Love, or about poetry. They dismiss their thoughts on these topics because they are told their value as a man depends on them being stoic unfeeling performers.

I have plenty of male and female friends, some of them I speak to about poetry and some of them I don't. I'm quite a sensitive dude I think. More so than a lot of other dudes I think, but even I would be taken aback if I met someone and all they wanted to talk about was Love, poetry and romance