03-10-2013, 05:35 AM
You're right though Serge, it does sound a bit arrogant -- there's a discussion thread around here somewhere about meaning but the upshot is, unless it's a point of clarity that I feel is important to make, I tend to feel that explaining a poem kills it. At the very least, the poet's explanation will preclude all other possible meanings for some people and that's not really doing the job that I think poetry ought to do. It IS important to make sure that there are enough "keys" in a poem for people to unlock meaning themselves though -- and that's the difference between open meaning and deliberate obscurity.
It could be worse
