Please remember that poetry is primarily an expressive art form. That means that a poem’s meaning to its author will be significantly different than what the reader gets from it.
However, and this is true for all art, Death of the Author does not mean there are unlimited valid interpretations/analyses. If it’s not there in the text, then it’s not there. The whole point of analysis is arguing with evidence what a text can be shown to mean. If the author pitches in, then we usually don’t allow that to determine our readings, but if they themselves argue from what is there in the text, and not from intention, then it’s bad faith to ignore that completely.
In academic circles, Death of the Author does not mean that the author’s context does not matter. Such an absolutist application of the theory simply does not work for many texts. It does matter. (Sometimes it is crucial to understanding a text). It’s simply that their intention & biography is not the authoritative source of meaning. That’s the text itself.
Lastly, I would say that it is an incredibly incurious and anti-artist move to solely focus on how a text relates to you. Sure, that’s the first, most primal reading, but if you truly love art and not just yourself, you have to go deeper. You have to understand that it wasn’t actually made for you, and it has more to show you than just your reflection.
Replacing the author’s perspective with yours as the sole perspective that is meaningful and matters to you is a very consumerist anti-expression way of engaging with art.
