Monday, February 10, 2014

"Introduction to Poetry," by Billy Collins


Introduction to Poetry
- Billy Collins

1                     I ask them to take a poem
2                     and hold it up to the light
3                     like a color slide
 
4                     or press an ear against its hive.

5                     I say drop a mouse into a poem
6                     and watch him probe his way out,

7                     or walk inside the poem’s room
8                     and feel the walls for a light switch.

9                     I want them to waterski
10                 across the surface of a poem
11                 waving at the author’s name on the shore.

12                 But all they want to do
13                 is tie the poem to a chair with a rope
14                 and torture a confession out of it.

15                 They begin beating it with a hose
16                 to find out what it really means.

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