What is ironic about the last stanza and what does the poem suggest about poetry and poets? What if your english teacher says its time to cast...

It seems
to me thein the last stanza of the poem stems from this line: "to look into your
soul."  The English teacher is finally allowing students the freedom to explore and examine
and reflect (much to the nerdy student's dismay, as he's the one who only loves true and false,
right and wrong).  The second stanza sets the reader up for great things.  It's a sunny day,
students are gleefully cheering, they get to have class outside--and the studies will revolve
around poetry. Everything sounds like it will be a glorious time of reading and writing poetry,
of introspection and discovery.  Only the nerdy student shudders at the thought, perhaps
understanding that what he will soon discover is not going to be pleasant.  That's why the last
stanza is ironic--the much hoped for break from facts and data and the opportunity
for introspection (self-examination) has led to self-discovery, and what they find isn't
pretty.  In fact,

the cheers subside

quicker than you can say

please shoot me

just
shoot me now and put me out of my misery.

The joy is gone
in the face of discovering what lives inside our hearts and souls.  This is, of course, a
one-sided view of the power of poetry, for it also has the power to inspire and create passion
where there was none.  In this poem, though, poetry is used as a mirror into what we'd prefer
not to see in our own souls.