You Were Right About What That Poem Really Meant. You Were Also Wrong.

TW: Non-explicit mentions of sexual and physical assault and discussion of their depiction. I once argued with a professor about the meaning of a poem. It was exactly like the stereotype. I even said, “Why can’t the refrigerator just stand for a fridge?” But the professor insisted that they knew the true meaning of the poem. I’ve met a lot of people who had similar experiences. Maybe you’re one of them. I’ve got some good news. You were right. But so was the instructor you were arguing with. And you were both completely wrong, too. The problem is that we’re all talking about the wrong thing. Or at least, we’re talking really, really imprecisely about it. The poem — or story, or film, or play, or artwork of any kind — actually has no meaning at all. It just … is. Ink on a page. Waves moving through air. Pigmented glass mounted in a frame. It exists, just like these pixels do. Nothing more or less. What we are actually talking about are two different experiences: The experience the…