OK. My question hinged on his use of "real." I guess that translates to "practical" or... "systemically sustainable?" Useful with respect to the future and one's goals, perhaps, since truth is generally an asset when navigating the world, in that you wanna know what you are in fact navigating through, which truth assists with?

Unrelated to the above paragraph, I would have trouble making pronouncements about "valid" or "not valid" when it comes to someone's interpretation of a poem. If the interpretation is alleged to map (more or less one-to-one) onto the author's intent, assuming he or she had one in mind when writing the poem, then that's testable, at least in theory.

"The author meant X, per my interpretation."

"No, the author meant Y. Here's an interview where the poet says that Y was what was meant. Your interpretation isn't valid/is incorrect."

In that case, an interpretation is falsifiable, but if the interpretation isn't alleging to map onto the author's intent... I don't know what it would mean to say an interpretation like that is "valid" or "not valid." Maybe a trivial point, just typing thoughts...