Billy Collins - Introduction To Poetry

     I enjoyed reading the poem Introduction To Poetry by Billy Collins.  This poem describes how to find out what a poem means, how to look at the world, without stating the facts in plain words.  The ending describes how some people look at a poem with only one point of view.  Some people read the poem exactly and when an answer doesn’t appear they repeatedly run into a brick wall of determination to try and get a meaning of the poems.  The author suggests looking through the meaning of the words or reflecting the meaning onto something else that is occurring to get a sense of what the author is saying.  The author also suggests that each part of the poem, each word, works to a better sense of meaning.  If you start in the middle and look at things in a random order then as you work your way across the poem you could bring a new meaning into view.  He uses the metaphors of water skiing and torture to illustrate the picture that he is painting for the reader.  The waterskiing across the surface while waving to the author’s name gives the idea that the author started the reader on interpreting the poem.  I think that the author wants the reader to study his poem and not strangle it.  By holding the colored slide to the light means to see the brightest colors and strongest meanings.  The author wants the reader to listen to the poems secrets like you “listen to a hive.”  He wants us to put our thoughts inside the poem and let them dart around like a mouse inside of a maze.  He wants his readers to listen to the poem and not destroy it.  There is a lot of imagery in this poem.  This poem offers itself as a color slide, a hive, a dark room, a lake, a knowing, but silent, defendant.  The poem wants us to engage in all these different images - except the last one – so that we might see into the heart of a poem without beating the poor thing to death.  I am sure that we all know the feeling of being the mouse dropped into the poem, trying to probe its way out.