"Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins

Named "the most popular poet in America" in the New York Times, Billy Collins is known for his wit and humor in his observations of the everyday, particularly reading and writing.

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.

Billy Collins's "Introduction to Poetry" explores the problems many encounter when reading or studying poetry. Like the readers in the poem, we tend to "tie the poem to a chair with a rope and torture a confession out of it." We often "beat it with a hose to find out what it really means" instead of discovering what it means to each of us individually.

The poem's logical and rational progression parallels the way Collins wants readers to approach a poem. His conversational tone and use of simple language also conveys that understanding a poem does not have to be a complicated, never ending search for meaning. Rather, he encourages readers to interact with a poem: to look at the structure and style, listen to the words, and feel the message. His use of sensory details and action verbs, such as "hold," "press," "watch," "walk," and "feel," convey this active interaction. In addition, his imagery of the natural world, such as light, bees and mice, and the ocean, encourages readers to stop, take a step back, and appreciate the beauty of the words, to experience the poem and appreciate it as a form of art, and most importantly, to determine what it means on a personal level.

This poem may even be an extended metaphor for life and our constant need to know everything and to have constant control over every aspect of our lives rather than letting go and living in the present, appreciating life for what it is.