Subject to change thoughts on Melville

When I read the Melville poems for the first time I was left thinking, "Okay, so what?" I'm not sure if it was because I read them aloud or if I was just close-minded at the time but I didn't find much there. I thought that Melville was just writing something straightforward and direct which is really different than the Dickinson poems that we've been reading. However, I read it again and then a third time and I found it interesting that I would get something more out of each reading. I realize that you can say almost all poetry is like that but I found something about Melville different. His poems almost tell a story until you look at each line really closely. Don't get me wrong. I'm definitely not ragging on Melville. I actually liked his poetry because it was easy to follow. "The Fall of Richmond..." is probably the best example of what I'm trying to say.
Anyway, I started to think about why Melville might write poems like this and my mind shifted back to "Benito Cereno" and all the discussion we had on Melville's stance on slavery. In his novel, Melville would always leave us guessing and present an idea with so many sides to it that it was difficult to separate his own feelings from the narrators and other characters. I thought he did this because he didn't really want people to know his opinion and I think that even more after reading his poetry. Perhaps his poems are tellings us stories so directly because that's really all that he wants to offer us. Maybe his poems are so straightforward because he doesn't want us to know how he feels about slavery or the war.
Those are just random guesses at what I got from reading Melville. I'm hoping that we can do as we did in "Benito Cereno" and try to figure out his opinions and feelings. It might help me tie Melville together better as an author because he still has me guessing.