10-01-2012, 12:05 AM
The outside context of the poem is important sometimes. To explain within the poem might diminish the effect. The rhyme, the meter, the rules of poetry and the rules of language, and the subject; sometimes the poem itself doesn't address its intent with these uses. It's important to have the poem do all it can on its own, but sometimes you hear the writer introducing the poem, and that lets you get it. And lots of famous poems probably wouldn't be popular today if not for critics and biographies that address second-hand aspects about the poem, that put it in perspective. Even some complex explanation why someone rhymed or didn't rhyme can add to the importance of a work in our culture.