I know this is a couple of pages late... (but honestly, when am I not?)
On the whole Paragon / Renegade thing:
My first two ME characters were pretty much pure paragon.
Although I'm not sure the Soldier counts, since that was the "recommended tutorial character" from the male, and I haven't even bothered to import her into ME2 yet.
My third, I decided was going to be my renegade character, except she didn't like it very much.
She's my adept, and I'm not sure what alignment she ended up, other than somewhat insane.
That's what I get for forcing the issue. She was still full paragon mind you, but she about half a renegade bar.
The Fourth one was the infiltrator, and she's full Renegade.
She isn't racist (species-ist?), and she's never mean to her crew, but other than that...
She has about as much paragon as the adept had renegade, but she feels more stable, probably because I wasn't forcing anything with her.
I think, in part, I needed a chance to see what the renegade choices actually did, before I felt comfortable with them.
And I loved renegading the interigation in Thane's loyalty mission. "Shortest interigation in history!"

However, I still haven't tried the "renegadizing" Kaidan thing. I don't think I will either, I like him just the way he is.

(No, I can't spell, why?)
On a side note: Weirdly, it was the crazy one... I mean the adept... that told me the poem.
Should I be worried about that, you think?