If the question, and the purpose of the exam, is framed as "why did the author do this or that?", then sure authorial intent has meaning to the question. And I certainly think what the author intended to mean can be culturally interesting. But for the individual experience of the work, intent beyond that included in the work itself doesn't have much bearing. So, to me, this post has a lot to do with the wrong kind of questions being asked of students. Poetry is not all about discovering what an author hoped you might feel and being "right". It's about your own experience of the words and ideas in the poem- or movie or whatever.

I guess what I'm saying is poetry runs on the client?