April is National Poetry Month

I love poetry, and I love it even more when a poem makes sense. Billy Collins is an easy poet to love. His poetry is straightforward, yet the way he strings words together is so brilliant, that I'm often left shaking my head in disbelief by the end of the text. As I looked through his collection "Sailing Alone Around the Room", there were many favorites that I wanted to post. I chose this one because it reminds me that I don't always have to "get" a poem to appreciate it...sometimes it's just the beauty of the language that's enough. Happy Poetry Month!

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 water-ski
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.