It is not about the particular poem.. It was about the innovative ux aporoach of showing the poem stanza in context of the review.. but unfortunately the archive link strips this javascript feature. Try opening the page in private or alternate browser and If you are able to bypass the paywall, you can enjoy it.

Why not?

> Because even as this poem is about what it’s like to be a turtle, it’s also about what it’s like for a turtle to be a metaphor. And — you could say therefore — about how looking at (or as) a turtle illuminates what it’s like to be a person, a woman, a poet.

Because it's turtles all the way down.

The "More from A.O. Scott" at the bottom of the article links to:

• "Life Isn’t Perfect. But This Poem Might Be." March 21, 2025 (“Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,” by Adrienne Rich, 1951) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/21/books/adrienn...

• "I Would Follow This Poem to Hell and Back" Feb. 21, 2025 (“my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell,” from SELECTED POEMS, copyright ©1963 by Gwendolyn Brooks) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/02/21/books/gwendol...

• "I Swear This Poem Didn’t Make Me Cry" Jan. 23, 2025 (“From a Photograph,” from NEW COLLECTED POEMS, copyright ©1962 by George Oppen) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/01/24/books/george-...

• "Will You Fall in Love With This Poem? I Did." Dec. 18, 2024 (“Romantic Poet,” by Diane Seuss, 2024) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/12/18/books/romanti...

• "A Poem About Waiting, and Wishing You Had a Drink" Nov. 1, 2024 (“Party Politics,” from “The Complete Poems,” by Philip Larkin. originally 1984?) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/01/books/philip-...

• "A Poem That’s Like a Perfect First Date" April 11, 2024 (“Having a Coke With You,” by Frank O’Hara, copyright © 1971) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/04/11/books/frank-o...

So it appears that this one is part of a series (previously called "Close Read" as in the last link above: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/arts/close-read.htm...): every few weeks / months, A. O. Scott writes about some poem he's liked, in this format (all of them say "Produced by Aliza Aufrichtig, Alicia DeSantis, Nick Donofrio and Emily Eakin").

This works a lot better than the archive link—they have the same text, but the archive link loses all of the JS, and so the page doesn’t make a lot of sense. Here you see it interactive, and—it’s a fun way to read a poem :-)

Aaaagh nooo, why have you converted this lovely poem into a feeble fable about a "winning mindset"?