Introduction to Poetry
Billy Collins * Track #8 On The Apple that Astonished Paris
Download "Introduction to Poetry"
Album The Apple that Astonished Paris
Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins
Performed by
Billy CollinsAbout
Billy Collins' “Introduction to Poetry” isn’t an ars poetica poem about writing poetry, but about reading poetry. The speaker is a teacher who tells his students that they should experience a poem, rather than dissect it. The focus on experience is emphasized by using metaphors that refer to concret...
Introduction to Poetry Annotated
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.