Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins
Introduction to Poetry
by Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him find his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for the light switch.
I want them to water-ski
across the surface of the poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin by beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.