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.
Billy Collins
The Apple that Astonished Paris
University of Arkansas Press
Copyright 1988 by Billy Collins.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Copyright 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 The Daily Poetry Association
"http://www.poems.com/intro_lo.htm"
janet paterson
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