…. Similar to that songwriting trick of, “Whoa ah oh, and that’s why I wrote this song for you, girl. Ooo lalala.” OK, it feels like a neat trick when you’re doing it, but all it does now is confirm the self-congratulatory stereotype about poets, the writer’s amazement that he could be writing a poem –a poem!– in this day & age…
It’s not exclusively a post-modern gesture (being meta referential). Shakespeare, Donne & others worked in references to the fact of writing the poem in the poem, often as a means of seduction (“and look, look what I’m doing for you, my lady”)… Too many poets do this today.
New tricks, please!