What is implied by traditions behind the poem? This may be the most difficult question to answer for a novice reader. If you knew a great deal about the "traditions behind poems" you probably would have already had an Introduction to Literature course and maybe several others. Yet some traditions you may know from earlier training or the way some poetic forms live in oral forms. Thus you might recognize light verse as frequently humorous or fun while you might intuit that a sonnet is more serious in tone. As for finding out what is implied, you can rely on your text to introduce you to these matters and you can sometimes research this for yourself through handbooks and encyclopedias of poetics.

The previous tip may be why their next bit of advice is to bother the reference librarian. In general, whether you use the librarian or search the Internet or use a good dictionary and general encyclopedia, the advice is for you to take the time to find out more about the poem you are reading closely. This can mean researching the poem itself by reading other people's comments on it. But it can also mean simply looking up words, word histories, etymologies, even pronunciations. Look up references to history, locations, myths, and people. While one might not think reading a comic poem such as Tom Wayman's "Wayman in Love," for example, would involve doing research, one's understanding would certainly be increased if one knew who Doctor Marx was, or Doctor Freud, and more important, why each is made to say what he says in the poem. If you have no idea of who these people are, I suppose the comic tone of the poem is lost for you.

Here is a link to a set of tools for reference to help you read.

Poems exist in time and times change. Indeed--when we pick up some poems, we can hardly put that aspect aside. The language seems strange, hardly English at all in some cases. One thinks of Shakespeare or any other major writer from the past. Sometimes we are reading literature from other countries or cultural groups as well. This raises the issue of culture and location as well as history. Like our efforts to deal with all the "gaps" of knowledge we have when we read, we acknowledge our ignorance and then strive to research for more understanding, without letting the need for that get us down. So we turn back to the library, the dictionaries, encyclopedias and the Web.

I think of it with wonder now,
the glass of mucus that stood on the table
next to my father all weekend. The cancer
is growing fast in his throat now, . . .

("The Glass" from The Father Sharon Olds 1992)

But she did--and she did knowing full well you would be disgusted, as she herself admits she would have been in other circumstances ("and the wonder to me is that it did not disgust me"). Most examples of the way desire interferes with dealing with what is actually on the page are not so dramatic. Often you will reach for the simpler interpretation of a word or phrase rather than even see the more difficult idea to integrate. But rereading will help as will researching words and doing research on images.

Surprise is essential. In fact, I might suggest that if there is no surprise or discovery in the process of reading and thinking about the designs a poem has on you and your feelings, then I would suggest you don't get it. In that sense, surprise is a bit like the laugh a joke is supposed to elicit. If you don't respond with a bit of wonder, you probably didn't get the poem. Not all jokes are funny and not all poetry is good poetry, but you can assume that the poems in the great anthologies of Literature have been "reader tested" for impact. Some might be subtle or just not your cup of tea, but you should strive to see what others have found in the experience. It is always a fair question to ask why this poem is in such famous company in the typical poetry unit in a classroom textbook.

The idea that there is a reason for everything in a poem comes from the craft and intense precision of poetry and from its modern sense of compression and economy. Poets tend to believe beyond all other writers in the power of the right word in the right place. This relates back to the idea that you should first accept the words on the page. Seek first for an explanation in the poem itself. This does not mean that mistakes in reproducing poetry or in translating poetry do not occur. But if, for example, you wish to ask yourself why the lines in some poems begin or end as they do, you are well within the scope of inquiry that a poem should welcome and answer.

Argue, and argue again, though you probably should begin by discussing, but if you then want to argue for a reading or an interpretation of form or content, you should do so. When we articulate for each other how we arrived at that surprise or gained that hard won interpretation of a difficult image or syntax, we help each other see possibilities in the poem. While we can argue, the question is always why. What is at stake in any reading of a poem? Better to ask might be what is at stake in not reading a poem with your entire sense that your own humanity is always at stake. Should Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" be argued with? Should it be resisted? In writing his parody, "The Dover Bitch," does Anthony Hecht resist Arnold's sentimentalism? Of course he does. Readers of poetry are always free to construct their "arguments" for and against the poems they read. You should feel that freedom too!