Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Introduction to Poetry

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.

Billy Collins

6 comments:

ArtPropelled said...

Lol...it must be great to do a poetry workshop with Billy Collins...and a little bit daunting. I enjoyed that, thank you.

IstvanBloggin' said...

You're welcome Robyn, glad you liked it!

Ambera said...

Absolutely beautiful..

IstvanBloggin' said...

Glad you like it Ambera.

eugenia said...

I absolutely agree. All we do on the literature class is define and slove what autor means by his poem. I really don't like that

what if he doesn't really mean it like that? How can we know what is he thinking? I was looking for the right words but this quote describes it perfectly
poetry is an art, art is freedom, it doesn't have a clear definition!

IstvanBloggin' said...

There's a great quote by Marcel Duchamp:
"As soon as we start putting our thoughts into words and sentences everything gets distorted, language is just no damn good -I use it because I have to, but I don't put any trust in it.
We never understand each other."
Welcome to the blog Linda!