Introduction To Poetry

Introduction To Poetry :




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.



By Billy Collins






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Introduction To Poetry
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