A poem confessed to me once that they were scared to be sent to university, and sit on the shelves of highest learning.
They’d heard rumours that academics strip poems bare there.
Lay them out naked on a cold steel slab and sharpen their scalpels.
Flay the skin, really dig around. Dissect alliteration.
Examine the belly, the bowel, the bones beneath.
Deconstruct every stanza, each word and every line.
Examine metaphors under a microscope.
Apparently, the poem suggested, it’s possible to study all the components of a piece but …still miss the point entirely.