what does intent mean for a poem?

Answer 1

Also what does this question mean? What deeper meaning might there be?

Answer 2

Intent is what the poet wanted his readers to see, feel, believe, understand about the poem.

A deeper meaning is understanding what lies beneath the actual words used.

Reread Whitman's "O Captain, My Captain." It's a metaphor for the recently deceased Abraham Lincoln. The ship is the nation and the storm is the Civil War.