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.

Poet: Billy Collins
Poem: Introduction To Poetry
Volume: The Apple that Astonished Paris
Year: Published/Written in 1988

Are you looking for more information on this poem? Perhaps you are trying to analyze it? The poem, Introduction To Poetry, has received 17 comments. Click here to read them, and perhaps post a comment of your own.