The introduction to poetry

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.

,.~*' my reaction '*~.,

I've always thought that poems were difficult to understand and interpret and I thought it was just me, but I guess not. Collins is trying to tell the reader to just appreciate and let the poem be, and that trying to extract the true meaning out of it is not the purpose of its existence. This poem itself have various meanings in each stanza, even with clear images of it, it could be interpreted in many ways. The general meaning of this poem is probably what I and others know already, but it is written in such simple yet somewhat artistic way. The poem may seem easy to understand but it still makes you wonder if he meant something else, and such thoughts makes this poem indeed beautiful.