If his head got any bigger...

When I read the poems that Perrine references, I interpretted them as his students did. After he explains his thoughts on them, his way of seeing them makes sense too, but why would a poet write a poem that needs a secret formula for interpretation? Literature is one of those subjects that has no specific formula for success. It is not an exact science, but rather an art, so it cannot be treated like a science. I'm sure that Perrinne has many papers that say he knows a lot more about literature than I do, but that doesn't mean he can make some law for correct reading of poetry. I think that he wants to make it easier for him to grade his students' papers by giving all poems a right and wrong meaning. Yes, I can't make every poem on earth mean whatever I want, but if a poem says "Daffodil" in it, it isn't a stretch to say it's about flowers. I don't like that Perrinne has a very arrogant tone in this essay and tries to make all of us seem like fools for thinking the logical thing about a poem. He needs to get a grip and realize that he sounds rather ridiculous.
On a more academic note, there were some things that he said that made sense to me. He talks about not making assumptions, and I like that. Certain words like "Daffodil" can have more than one implication and forcing one definition to fit the rest of the poem is probably not the best way to go about interpretting poems. I also like that he says that all of the details need to work together. The poet has very few words to express their thoughts, so each word is chosen carefully. Each detail centers around a specific theme and if one detail does not fit one's interpretation, they probably have some flaw in it. Despite that, there still can be multiple interpretations that can fit a poem. I realize that poets write poems with one interpretation in mind, but poets as well as Mr. Perrinne need to realize that most poems can be seen in more than one way.