Poem Response

Poem Response-JohnZ

The poem I chose in "Eating Poetry" by Mark Strand. When I first read through it, I didn't really get what the author is trying to express, I know that he's is trying to show a scene that a dog is "eating" or playing with a piece of paper with poems on it, but I am not sure about what the author is trying to express throughout the poem. After reading a few times, I start to have the idea that maybe the librarian's emotion is not directly related to the dog's thought and emotion. Maybe the librarian was just worrying about losing her job because the dog was destroying books or materials in the library. But for the dog, it's something else, it might be about it getting to realize the importance and fun of knowledge to it, it's clear that the dog is enjoying the process of playing with these poems, and in the very last stanza the poet also mentioned that "I am a new man. I snared at her and bark. I romp with joy in the foolish dark." Which gives me a sense of the dog is starting to have the mindset, the recognition ability that we have as human. But one thing I never get in the poem is the fifth stanza where it said: "When I get on my knee and lick her hand, she screams." I'm not sure whether is the librarian screaming about the mess that the dog cause or she realized that the dog is enjoying the poem in a different way, as I see it might be the latter possibility. Usually, when people see something like this we would scream or react at the first, but the poet chose to put this sentence in this position, which really confuses me that what caused the librarian losing control and start to scream. 

There are some questions I want to know about the poem. First, Is there anything that the poet is trying to express in the poem? A lot of times in some very simple poems there are meanings behind the words, but for this one is something I'm not certain about. Second, How did the dog get into the library? We all know that pets like dogs are not allowed in most of the book stores or libraries, but in this one there's a dog that appeared, so I'm wondering how did the dog get into the library, if it belongs to the librarian, then it won't be brought to there, and visitors are not allowed to bring them in. Third, Is the dog really enjoying knowledge or it's just playing with whatever it saw in front of it. Fourth, Why did the poet wrote a poem describing such an unusual scene?