Carrying on the theme of Troy’s last blog, I would like to note that a poem is only half there when it carries the meaning of the author. That meaning is important if only for  just wanting to communicate to our friends. But an even larger arena of meaning is the interpretation of our reader that is based on his own background and experience. He may take the words to an entirely different place and that is OK. If he had written them, that is what they would have meant. That meaning is just as legitimate as the author’s intended meaning. And I think some authors like to write, not to communicate but to tease out these extended meanings, hoping they will be many. Ambiguity is a technique in poetry. I have done that myself. To my delight one of my poems elicited two quite different interpretations. It is “The Congregation of the Zero” as follows: We are the swelling Congregation of the ZeroRebelling in our spelling it as HeroFor never yelling at the crowdFor dwelling with a silence, loudReaction to our selling pleasServed with a most compelling pleaseOur hoped bestselling lineThough it may truly be repelling, smellingDeserves at least a yelling at in time.  Jess commented on the meaning as, “Fuck off consumerism.,” No doubt the terms, “crowd, selling, best selling” lead in that direction. It gave me a refreshing new look at the lines from that viewpoint. A second interpretation was that of Jayne-Chloe, “the message I got was that no matter how smelly and disgusting everyone deserves to have their right to voice or word lol funny how people take different things from a poem eh ?” Yes, funny and a lot of fun.Here is the authors version: I was a bit in dismay to see the rate at which poems are submitted to Neopoet and the many poems that get zero comments. That is the congregation. As a new poet to the site, I was often in that category. I was thinking that even if someone told me my lines were repelling, smelling it would be better than no comments at all. I understand the problem so much more now and my solution to help is to go to the tracker and look for all the zeros and try to give as many as I can some constructive advice.I want to agree with Troy that any comments with the poems are very helpful. I know that some poets believe that a poem should stand or fall on it’s own merits; there should be no explanation. I think that is purist and ideally might make sense but is probably not practical. Maybe it is for the top poets and poems.