Introduction to Poetry
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."
The truth is that there is no right answer in poetry.
This poem describes many different ways of analyzing poetry. It describes the way one person may look right through a poem and find no significance in it at all. It describes how some may see or hear what the poem is trying to say. It describes those who are only skimming the surface, not really taking in the information. Then it describes those who over analyze and try to force a meaning into it. Many people do not see the true meaning in poems they just try to take all the literal meanings of the poem. But the truth is that there is no right way to analyze poetry.
