A spoken performance. Poetry is meant for the ear, and part of the pleasure of poetry is hearing poetry spoken aloud in such a manner that the speaker's voice (and facial expressions, gestures, even costumes and props, if you like) convey the poem's emotional core.

The point of an oral interpretation is not to demonstrate that you have memorized the poem (you're free to read it from a page) or that you can recite it in the secret, specific "right" way that the author and your teachers expect you to recite it.

Poets often play with ambiguous meanings and invoke many possible interpretations; your job is to find one consistent, coherent interpretation and communicate it to your audience.

An oral interpretation is an act of persuasion -- you're trying to convince your audience to accept your particular take on a literary work that may have multiple potential meanings.

As with any intellectual act of persuasion, it pays to lay a factual foundation. Look up the proper pronunciation and definition of all the words the poet uses, as well as the significance of allusions to historical events, public figures, mythological characters, flowers or animals, etc. If your work was written in the past, look in an older dictionary to find out what a word meant at the time it was written. (Consider words like "postal" in the light of recent incidents of workplace violence,