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I found a lot of these poems and the commentary that followed to be interesting.  But I wasn't sure what we were trying to get at.

 Even at the top of this thread, the "experiment" isn't explained.  We have instructions, but nothing to be looking for, except for skumar's hypothesis, which I sort of felt that we, as a class, at least partially rejected or found flawed.   I was struck by a hypothesis being present at all; how can a hypothesis be supported or not by all poetry, or even most, when it's such a personal art?  Shouldn't we leave general hypotheses to science, and more personal findings to writing?  Because while this hypothesis may have been "proven true" for some of the class, it could have done the opposite for the rest.

 I'm not claiming that there isn't value in exploring personal hypotheses in poetry.  But I DO feel uncomfortable treating this as an experiment, giving it a hypothesis, and emerge with blanket truths or falsehoods that we should all walk away with, especially when we looking at such a small fraction of poetry.

That said, I appreciate Anne's posting here because it gives us the freedom to walk away with whatever insights we feel best describe the poetry we encountered in class.