submitted by Carl Beck,
"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
This poem makes me smile, only because it wasn't until I stopped trying to
understand poetry that I was able to open the gate to the wonderful
playground that poetry can be.
[this poem is archived, accessible and awaiting your comments at]
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1774.html
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