The Secret

Two girls discover

the secret of life
in a sudden line of
poetry.

(It is human nature too look for the "true meaning of life" in practically everything. I believe that it happens subconsciously to humans when analyzing anything. Poetry is constantly assumed to have deeper meanings behind the words, which is ironic because this poem is extremely straight forward.)
I who don't know the
secret wrote
the line. They
told me

(through a third person)
they had found it
but not what it was
not even

(When I read the following two stanza's I can't help but to think of what Mrs. White said to my AP Lit. and Comp. class. "Don't beat poems with a hose to find the meaning." The author herself, Levetrov, claims she didn't know the secret the girls discovered behind the lines she wrote. Poems can be written just to be pretty, poems do not have to be metaphorical or philosophical. Try reading a poem without looking for a hidden meaning, without analyzing every word, sentence, and/or stanza, just read the poem for enjoyment!)

what line it was. No doubt
by now, more than a week
later, they have forgotten
the secret,

the line, the name of
the poem. I love them
for finding what
I can't find,

(For me, I want every reader of my writing to find something to connect too. I know this contradicts what I said before about reading just to read but the reasoning behind my writing is to influence and change lives. I want people to beat my writing until it's withering in the corner spewing forth hidden meanings that only the one individual reader can connect too. " I love them for finding what I can't find . . ." When I receive comment about a piece of my writing that did not even occur to myself I get ecstatic.)

and for loving me
for the line I wrote,
and for forgetting it
so that

a thousand times, till death
finds them, they may
discover it again, in other
lines

in other
happenings. And for
wanting to know it,
for

assuming there is
such a secret, yes,
for that
most of all.
                     -Denise Levertov

(This is a brilliant poem. There is no inner meanings or metaphors, it is straight forward and beautiful. A piece of writing is explicit when a reader can re-read the poetry a week later and have it renew all of the satisfaction it had given them only a few days before. It is a writers dream to have their art enjoyed a thousand times over. The last stanza hit home. Having a piece of work that readers assume to have such significance and meaning is a gift itself. For her piece of writing to be appreciated and noticed and beaten is assuring.)