As I collate my students’ marks, I look to my response to the poem set. Here it is:
Initial thoughts:
First person has some authority, yet ‘asks’
first word of first three stanzas considers separate desires to approach poetry
Final stanzas bemoan how students analyse poetry
Images: ‘colour slide’ – white light contains all the spectrums of colour: to appreciate poetry one must sometimes take pieces out
an ear against its hive suggest many individual parts working together for the greater whole
the metaphor of ‘the mouse’ suggests an innocent, wandering manner of analysis
the ‘poem’s room’ suggests accepting the terms of the poem for what they are (rather than judging its value purely on your context as a teenager in an exam)
The playfulness of ‘waterski’ belies the desire to see the death of the author (in the sense that the poem should be read further than author intention
Students are ‘they’. The word ‘torture’ and ‘confession’ have dark overtones.
The ‘hose’ is deliberately absurd to counteract the previous. What it ‘really means’ is contextual to how the students are required to use it.
