I have come to a point where with a bit of dictionary turning, Latin prose is pretty easy. But whenever I try to translate latin poetry, it all goes downhill. The problem I guess is that sometimes its really hard to figure out where one clause starts and ends, and how to keep track of all the poetic licenses, uses of certain cases, and sentences with abiguous subjects.
I’m sure its not really that hard, but simply a problem with my approach to it all.
as soon as you figure out a way to make reading latin poetry as easy as reading latin prose (although, to be honest, I’m not at that point yet where I can read latin without analyzing it to death first 
), you should let me know! 
I think the first step is to find a time machine …
Often times I find that ready poetry like Vergil can be very enjoyable since there are certain “rules.” For example, usually there is only one adjective per noun. It is also easier to determine if a noun is nom. sing. vs. abl. sing. because of the long-short accents of the meter.
I think the main thing is just that poetry, like everything else, takes practice.
After translating some Catullus, I’ve found my biggest problem is figuring out the antecedent of pronouns (especially when the gender of the pronoun matches barely anything else in the work) and the main verb of indirect infinitives. Are there any “rules” or “norms” to figure those out?
Mabye you guys can help me with this:
“”
‘non’ inquam ‘mihi tam fuit maligne,
ut, provincia quod malal incidisset,
non posem octo homines parare rectos’
“”
“Things were not so bad for me” I said “as the wicked province should have come to it, I should not be able to prepare eight upright me.”
?
It’s a strange sentence.