Line 1

Koch's "Paradiso" begins with a statement that may be called an absolute positive negative: "There is no way not to be excited" (italics inserted). From the outset, the speaker takes away all but one option on how to respond to what he is about to say. Whoever hears him, whoever reads his words must be as excited as he is about the coming scenario.

Line 2

What follows is seemingly a statement of direct address—a speaker talking pointedly to "you" the reader, but later in the poem the second person turns into the first, and the reader realizes the speaker is actually talking to himself. In line 2 the topic is disillusionment, but it is coupled with the enlightened notion of something "rais[ing] its head," implying a rebirth or reprieve from what has been keeping the head down. The idea of human disillusionment is central to the...