! Faves And Yuks

and some say oh that’s my favourite ever poem my aunt my uncle my teacher read it to me when I was twelve and the more I read it the more true it is and now I’m older I can say it off by heart as if the poem knows my heart and some say that poem yuk I really really hate it the more people said to me that’s a great poem the more I hated it now if I see it in an anthology I skip the page quickly I really really hate it and I wonder if the more people read a poem do they take a bit of its power into themselves so it no longer has quite that surprise it had or the more people read that poem the more they add to it so it has the power to surprise more people or do poems like a rest from time to time like that old toy in your grandparents’ attic which so surprised you that Jack-in-a-box with a face like Pushkin or Langston Hughes