hidden meaning or in your face poems?

I'm intrested in knowing what people like better. Do you guys like to look for the hidden meaning in a poems or do you like poems that tell it to you straight?

i dont mind!!! lol

Every once in a while I enjoy "in your face poems" for a reason (and I am quoting Bob shank from a forum I started about this earlier) it is relaxing and sort of a break from interpreting all the full meaning of a thoroughly detailed piece.

But, 95% of the time, I am completly for metaphors and symbols. I love exploring the nearly endless interpretations and hidden meaning, and the complex thought which is pulled into it forces the mind into a deeper state, making it all the more impactful and beautiful.

i really do like trying to figure out the hidden messages but then again it all depends on the poem. not the writter to me but the poem.

JPM: You say it like it is! That's a quality I admire.

Anyway, meaning in poetry and or prose. Surely we can dismiss looking for what the author meant to say and was feeling in his/er work (re: what Bob Shank said above). Once a poem has been written and submitted for all to see, the author is dead! (according to Roland Barthes French literary critic). He asserts that we project our own meaning onto the work due to our unique cultural background and psychological make up. I agree with him. For example in symbolism: the red rose might be symbolic of love in most parts of the world; yet to another part of the world it would mean something totally different. Consequently, you write it; you publish it, and the work is open to interpretation and misinterpretation at many levels. Thus, the author is dead, and we become the new author/s as we impose new meanings onto the work. (As with all art, I guess).

Damn you, JPM, you never agree! Has that Californian sunshine got to your head? ah!

JPM

That's the spirit I'm used to! 'Pub/bar sounds good for me at this time. It's 18:00hrs here in fucked up England, and it's Friday night so off I trot per chance to sample piss weak beer at over taxed prices and a hoard of lager louts - well there will be when I arrive! have a good weekend yeral

JPM.

We the Brits say 'we'll sample a few beers' as though we're all connoisseurs on the subject - well we like to think we are. It's just a euphamism to say we're gonna go out and get pissed. Bearing in mind that when when we get 'pissed', pissed means drunk; as opposed to the American 'pissed' which means angry. There you go! There's another word that proclaims the 'death of the author', as I mentioned above.

hidden meanings r better

I think that both are good eather way, and it depends on how you express it...

hidden meanings make you think more. so i like those ones better

I like to find the hidden meanings, but since I am slow, everyone usually finds it before me....My poems are usually right to the point.