Flowers, Cold night, Life

When I was in high school, I dreaded my English subject especially during my junior year not because of the teacher (despite the fact that she announced in class that I was the bitch who hated her) but because of those activities where we have to analyze the true meaning of poems, sonnets, haikus etc. I strongly believe that whoever started this notion that ALL poets/authors have some deeper meaning in their works must be cursed for infinity.

If the work was written during a tumultuous time in history and the subject of the work touches politics or religion or some important theme/subject I would totally understand that the author would hide deeper meanings in their work as to avoid persecution, punishment or even death. But what I really hate is when you have to analyze a work when the author is just describing a garden, a field, a cold night or the tiger’s fearful stature. The last phrase fearful stature is “special” to me, because I clearly remember this as the phrase that I was once asked in class to analyze what it means. I was speechless for a few seconds and just eventually had to talk gibberish about how I would be scared if I saw a tiger.

Did it ever occur to these people that what if the author just simply wanted to describe the flowers in the garden because he was bored and can’t think of anything else to write about? That it was just really a cold night and he had to write a long poem just so he could divert his attention and forget how cold it was. Why all these should have some deep meaning or should give us to the meaning of life?

Why do people always have the insatiable need to have an explanation for or know everything? Are we all shrinks deep inside?