Starting from theoretical concepts of reading and understanding of literature, this paper deals with actual problems of interpretation of poetry after structuralism and poststructuralism. After brief insight into the phenomenological theory and practice (H. G. Gadamer, W. Kayser, E. Steiger) as the key impulse to modern interpretation approach, first part of the paper consists of a historical survey of production-construction and reception-lecturer paradigms and their main representatives (R. Jakobson, M. Riffaterre, T. S. Eliot, H. Bloom, H. R. Jauss, J. Derrida, P. De Man, S. Fisch). The paper proposes dialogical theory (M. Bakhtin, P. Zima) and reflexive identity of reading/interpretation (T. Brajović) as suitable critical concepts for a contemporary approach to interpreting poetry. Accordingly, theoretical constructs of the lyrical dominant and interpretative focus are suggested as the methodological tools, which are, then, applied to the interpretation of two canonical modern Croatian poems – “Svakidašnja jadikovka”/“Everyday Lament” by Tin Ujević, and “Mrtvac”/“The Dead Man” by Vladimir Vidrić.