I'm not going to rush in developing criteria, or in my reads.
I have never actually read 26 poems at one sitting before. It was an interesting experience, and I learned something about myself -- it really doesn't work for me. I need to read them one by one, a couple of times, and let the meaning sink in for a bit before moving on, or I pretty much miss much of the impact. My brain gets overloaded, and the more delicate nuances fly right over me.
I did better on a second, slower read of a few of them. It was interesting how differently they struck me, how the voices leapt out at me (I have a couple of guesses as to which poets submitted a couple of them) and how some things that flew right over my head the first time round hit me in the gut.
I usually do pretty well on a first read of a single poem. But not so much when it's 26 of them. Lesson learned.
So my approach, such as it is, will be to re-read a few of them a day, and narrow them down as I go.