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I have to say, I think personal exploration of a poem is fine, but any time you try to force it on someone it becomes wrong and deserving of the poem above. That's why I hate doing poetry in school. I like what I get out of a poem, not what someone else got out of it and what the "masters" think of it. There are differences between what the writer felt, what the writer meant, what the writer may later have seen, what "poetry analysts" see, what one person sees, etc. I had a grand debate once over whether every good piece of writing HAD to have some meaninng put in by the author. I say no. I say the meaning is taken by the reader. Yes, it can be put there, but not neededly. Like Frost, I hate Frost, but I live in NH so we read him all the time. Eccchhh.

ANyways, one I like:

The Forester
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

The buzz-saw, screeching, as it cut
Its way through pine-planks, filled the hut
With such a tearing din,
He heard no footfall on the sill,
And not an inkling had, until
The belt snapped and the blade stood still,
A stranger had come in.

But, as he dodge the flying belt,
Side-stepping, a soft touch he felt
On his left shoulderblade;
And, turning, looked with mute surprise
Into unknown green-shadowed eyes,
The color of a pond that lies
Deep in a forest-glade.

Dark eyes that held no daylight gleam
Looked into his; and in a dream
With icing blood he stood;
As in the presences, looming there
With cloudy plumes of pine-dark hair,
He recognized with cold despair
The spirit of the wood-

THe spirit of the wood that he
For years had ravished, tree by tree,
TO feed his ravening mill:
And, as she turned with sighing stir,
Unquestioning, the old forester
With halting footstep followed her
Over the darkening sill.




I've liked that one since I first read it in the fall.