On Sylvia's Poems Poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph

He writes explanations for Sylvia’s poems;
I read and ponder, fondly hoping to link the two,
But after a few pages and a few hard poems,
I think he exaggerates, fantasizes, shows up
Undue haste to arrive at meanings not there.

Why can’t the poet-critic restrict himself to what
Is written in black and white by her, and lead me
To meanings outside the text, only if providing clear
Details found in biography, like the elm or yew tree
That grew one on East, one West in her Devon home.

Mary’s Song, he calls, one of her masterpieces:
Where is ‘the maternal instinct’ contrasting emotion
‘Of male deity, demanding the sacrifice of the son’?
I read the poem again and again but I find only
“The golden child the world will kill and eat”?

Does the poet have the licence to dream up
What meanings he finds floating into his awareness
As he reads someone else’s, Sylvia’s poems? And
The public already convinced of the greatness of both,
Reads in silence whatever is imagined and fitted out?