Heather McHugh from Best American Poetry

And What Do You Get

"Eleven tons of hidden work are always lurking inside words."  Just by tweaking a little here and there, you can fully manipulate words to mean something totally different and unrelated.
     I didn't really know what poem to really talk about until the very last minute of class when someone brought this poem to light.  Every single poem that we've looked at so far either didn't make sense and needed explanation or had a mind of its own.  Until I saw this one.  Yes, it still has a mind of its own but unlike the others, it makes you think without hurting your head too much.  It takes baby steps in order to explain a simple concept and yet its quirks are still hard to figure out, if that makes sense.  For example,

     "Excise the er from exercise.  Or from
      example, take ex out: now it's bigger;" ...which makes "ample."

Simple, right?  Just a play on words.  But it takes it a step further like this,

     "to be lonely, take the amp out
      and replace it with an i." ...which makes "exile."

     Although I've figured out most of the poem, I can't help but feel like I haven't even begun to fully grasp it.  I feel as if there's more to it then just mixing the words around.  Now, I don't feel like explaining it to you, so I won't.  I'll just leave the rest to you.