Iain

I join those agreeing with b), but again, with some caveats. As far as I’m concerned, if a poem has been seriously thought over and considered, it should only be interpreted according to the poet’s intended meaning. When this is not picked up on, it is either due to clumsiness in the poet or, more often, laziness in the reader. That said, if there is a poem that twenty different readers interpret in twenty different ways, I’d say that it is the poet who’s at fault (i.e. if they’re Dylan Thomas) for not coherently getting their ideas across, since if the poem can be understood on a coherent level with a little work from the reader, at least the majority would manage to pick up on at least most of the poem.

Since certain pieces of poetry are more difficult or ambiguous in meaning than others, it’s only natural that certain readers will not raise their standards of concentration to appreciate the text in the way that the poet intended. It’s important that the poet meet the reader halfway here, as there are many dull and overly allusion-cluttered passages in Ezra Pound’s Cantos which do not really reward perseverance and invite being skipped over by less discriminating readers in favour of the moments of greatness when Pound’s lyricism conveys itself in readily transmitted ideas. However, if someone reads ‘The Wasteland’ and thinks it is a poem about the need to do gardening then I’d suggest their reading to be invalid, and inattentiveness is to blame. Some interpretations are thus more valid than others and the one that is most valid is the one which most fully apprehends the intended meaning of the poem.

The ‘anything goes’ attitude to some people’s idea of poetry interpretation is an offshoot of lazy writing where things are thrown down just to pad things out or suit a rhyme scheme, irrespective of lucidity or communication of ideas. In this sense, it is as tacitly irresponsible as Hollywood actors who mangle the metre of Shakespeare simply because it’s their own interpretation and they don’t have a wish to contain themselves to how the lines were meant to be read. Lazy reading makes for lazy writing and neither is desired.

However, here’s an exception I take. The writing of poetry, as an expression of self, is subject to subconscious impulses that can flavour a piece of verse without the poet being aware of it until after it has been written. Likewise, just as a piece of music can affect different listeners in variations of the same emotion, having heard the music the same way, so too can verse in different readers excite variations on the same thought and emotion. So long as these accord with what the poetry is meant to express, all variations are equally valid. So too are the amplifications and subtle differences in meaning which, along with music, all good poetry accrues for these readers over time. So I agree with b): but believe the statements of both a) and b) are a bit too abstract. In that sense, I agree with almost everyone else who has responded to the thread.

Iain