But does the poem make you feel happy... or sad?

Oh. my. goodness. If ever there was an epitome of Englishmajordom BS, it would be contemporary poetry. I can already see that I will treasure this poetry class... as only a disgruntled literature-reader and believer-in could: with utmost disdain and wtfery. Seriously, seriously wtf! We honestly spent an hour and a half today talking about whether it was possible to capture nature in art, and whether it was valid to argue on the basis of whether the poem was happy or sad, and how much the poet's reading could affect that, and whether meaning existed inside or outside the work (which, honestly, my Intro to Ficiton class covered so much more coherently and most importantly quite conveniently in a way I completely agreed with). If this class wasn't required, I'd drop it like a hot potato or... well, a class on poetry. But I don't feel like waiting and taking a stodgier poetry class because in this one we're at least we're writing reviews instead of papers, so when it comes to be my time, I can be as freaking snarky as I want. The only thing redeeming about this stuff is my amusement at Poe, who has nothing at all to do with this class, but who, even if he wasn't serious, told everyone how he basically mathematically derived The Raven. At least he wasn't like "Well, I wrote the first stanza and then followed the form from there and look, what I wrote makes no sense but it's there anyway!" Or, later in this poet-dude's career "I write things that seem to mean, rather than things that mean." Oh good! So your poetry basically reads like my spam folder! Awesometacular, dude, I'm totally behind you on that one.

So guys, did they throw the painter into the sea, or just his canvas? Or does it not matter, because while painting the ocean, which was his soul or perhaps a prayer, the portrait became one of himself so when the cynical artists in the building threw him into the sea it was the same? Is this, perhaps, a 1940s-era Gary Stu poem, in which the (emo) poet sees himself (a painter) crusified (by his art) for trying to capture the soul of nature--his soul/prayer--but is drowned in a sea of his own tears by the critics, who obviously see that what he's saying is a load of random words that only get more random the older he gets? (Five points to anyone who can name the poem and poet I'm complaining about.)