What does the poem really mean? That is, what hidden meanings are present in the poem?
There are no hidden meanings in my poems. They are meant to be straightforward statements. Of course, the poem “Did I Miss Anything?” has a mocking tone, and when people are angry they say things they don’t mean. For example, the sarcastic speaker in my poem is pretending to answer the student’s question honestly but in fact is taking a round-about way to say to the student that there’s something wrong with the way the student has phrased the question. Language is tricky that way: in certain moods, we often say the opposite of what we mean, or at least mean something different than what we say. “What-ever” used as a put-down doesn’t really mean the speaker is fine with what has been said or done. “What-ever” actually signals that the speaker DOESN’T agree with what has just been said or done, but at best is resigned to the stupidity (as the speaker sees it) of what has just been said or done. In my poems, the only hidden meaning are the meanings we hide in language all day long. One of
