Billy Collins - Introduction To Poetry

Billy Collins reads his poem Introduction To Poetry

Introduction To Poetry
by Billy Collins (1941- )

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 probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a 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 beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Billy
• Collins
• Introduction
• To
• Poetry
• Poem
• American
• Poet
• Laureate
• Literature
• Poetictouch