Introduction to Poetry-Page88
Introduction to Poetry, by Billy Collins, uses vivid imagery and diverse metaphores in order to portray the thought that poetry needs to be experienced instead of viciously pulled apart and analyzed in order to obtain the full meaning and impact of it. The narrator is trying to teach naive, and most likely younger, pupils how to properly read and find the true meaning of poetry. He uses metaphores such as "drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out" in order to show that poetry has depth to it, and should be looked at on more than one level. A poem should not be viewed just as words on a peice of paper that if you squint hard enough, will magically form some wonderful lesson or meaning that will change your view of the world. Instead it should be explored and looked at from different angles. The structure and diction are not all that make up a poem, not all that contain the meaning of the work as a whole, though they can be helpful. A poem should be viewed as an experience to be had, "or walk inside of the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch." When the lights are out, eyes cannot see words on paper, so instead other senses must be used to explore the unfamiliar setting and search for the purpose of this 'room.' The narrator also describes how poems should be felt on various levels for all that they are truely worth, "water-ski across the surface of a poem," the answers lying hidden below the surface. "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." As students taught to analyze literature by structure, diction, word choice, and tone, his students often go straight to trying to rip the lines apart without first experiencing the way the poem makes them feel. They neglect to notice the way that the narrator feels as she/he pours out feelings on a certain subject or event that has happened or is expected in the future, either awaited with anxiety or fear. The eloquent imagery also supports the fact that poems have complicated inner workings that cannot be looked at from only the outside, "or press an ear against its hive." The image of a bee hive is one of organized structure and purpose hidden within the thick walls of the nest. Every bee has its purpose, just like every word in a poem. However also like a poem, the jobs are not displayed out in the open. Only by peering into an opening in the structure can the true purpose of the bees that fly around a garden be seen. Beating the structure with a hose will surely crack it open, but it will likely also disrupt the process that is going on within, and therefore may cause a peice of its meaning to become lost or overlooked. Though the structure and words are important to a poem, when searching for a meaning it is sometimes best to sit back and let the meaning come out from hiding in the deep workings of the poem, rather than to try to rip apart its hiding space and drag it out by its toes.
I believe that this poem is very accurate. As naive students, we often try to focus on the structure and word choice of a poem for its literal meaning, and will stare at it for hours trying to have the meaning jump out at us, instead of simply reading and letting the meaning show itself. I do not mean to say that word choice and structure are not important; but instead, the way we usually go about discovering their importance is usually not correct. A red room is never just a red room, however staring at the walls does not magically make black words show themselves to explain why the walls are red. However, turning out the lights forces us to use our other senses and feel the meaning from other words in the poem, which can then be backed up by structure and word choice. I think that when analyzing poetry, one should take the time to explore every level and experience everything that the poem has to offer. In doing so, the meaning will reveal itself to you. What the person sitting next to you gets out of it does not matter, because you have discovered what the poem means to you and how it makes you feel. If you can back it up with evidence from the text, I don't think that a person grading your paper or AP exam will mind a new insight into the poem that perhaps they themselves had missed.
