I plan to deviate from my normal monthly blog posts by focusing on poetry for the rest of March and all of April. A couple of days ago, without any thought of doing this or that April is National Poetry Month, I ordered severals books by Billy Collins. A U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001 - 2003 and for NY State from 2004 - 2006, his poetry is witty, whimsical, thought-provoking and most important to me as a novice poetry reader: accessible. Case in point - read below.
INTRODUCTION TO POETRY
By Billy Collins
in Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry
An anthology of contemporary poems selected by Billy Collins
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.
