Literary Essay: "Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins

Poetry is often overanalyzed when readers search desperately for a deep meaning. They search so hard for a poetic definition that they don’t enjoy and appreciate the poem itself.  “Introduction to Poetry,” a poem by Billy Collins, explores ways to understand, read, and think about poetry. The author uses descriptions through the five senses to show readers that when they read poetry, they don’t always have to find deeper meanings: they can simply appreciate the writing as it is.

I noticed the way the speaker personifies the poem through senses such as sight, hearing, touch; “I ask them to take a poem/and hold it up to the light/like a color slide” (Collins lines 1-3). Metaphorically, this represents one way we can view and explore a poem: by “hold[ing] it up to the light,” and seeing what the light shows us. “Or press an ear against its hive,” the speaker introduces in line four. Collins wants readers to hear poetry: to listen and observe and wonder and notice. Yet again, he shows how we light up and understand a poem by “walk[ing] inside the the poem’s room/and feel[ing] the walls for a light switch” (Collins lines 7-8). Just like turning on a light, we can “turn on” a poem by finding our own personal “light switch” that lights up our own interpretations of the writing. Maybe there are ways of eludicating poetry without searching for a definite message.

The speaker also shows that solely looking for a literal definition within poetry is limited, and that poems are open and multivalent; “I say drop a mouse into a poem/and watch him probe his way out” (Collins lines 5-6). When I think of a mouse in a room, I think of all the ways it would try to escape. The mouse would try everything and keep circling and circling the room until it found its way out. The endless pursuits of the mouse reminds me of the endless interpretations that are found within poetry. Lets “watch him probe his way out;” lets watch a poem and ponder on the many meanings and interpretations it provides. In summary, the author includes metaphors to show the unlimited analysis’ of poetry.

The poem closes with the speaker’s attempt to show how desperate readers are to find a single exegesis of a poem; “But all they want to do/is tie a poem to a chair with rope/and torture a confession out of it” (Collins lines 13-15). After including multiple ways to read poetry, the speaker tells the readers what people really want to do with a poem. He claims they don’t want to explore and enjoy it: they only want to “find out what it really means,” as it states in line seventeen. The image of “tying a poem to a chair” and “torturing a confession out of it” reminds me of tying a human up and torturing information out of them. Is that all that really matters to people? After all the possible ways we could read and embrace poetry, as the speaker provides, all anyone really wants to do is find the answer. The last few lines of the poem provides a powerful impact on the reader, revealing the truth about how the speaker believes poetry is actually read.

With all texts throughout my schooling, I’ve had to analyze and interpret them. As any child would think, it’s often “annoying” to just restate and try to figure out what the writing is stating. And although interpreting and understanding text is very important, I feel I am often forced to overanalyze text: searching only to find something to annotate rather than actually appreciating and truly understanding writing. “Introduction to Poetry” beautifully addresses this issue by tempting the reader with poetic ways to interact with poetry and then stating that readers only care about a definitive message. We should not just pointlessly analyze texts to their bare bones but explore, interpret, and embrace them.