"Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins has become my all-time favorite poem. From the title you would think it would not even be a poem. Possibly it's a long rubric or guide to the subject of poetry or maybe even a long essay on the famous classic poets and poems that everyone should know. Instead, Collins's main point is about how one should take poetry lightly, or for what it is no matter what the content-which totally contradicts what I've learned about approaching poetry through every English class. This central contradiction becomes complicated through the fact that Billy Collins delivered his message through a poem. To understand poetry at all, it must be broken down. Collins's use of poetic devices which the reader must analyze to get to the final point of not analyzing becomes the contradiction. 

For example Colins's use in the first stanza of the image of light is misleading.  The application of light has many connotations which have to be read into in order to understand its references. For example, light's common association with goodness or the allusion to God doesn't apply in this poem; instead the light signifies illumination. Light allows a clearer vision or truth to be shown, and that is what Collin is asking us to do with the poetry. By asking us to hold the poem "up to the light like a color slide," he is assuring us that the truth will unfold itself without an intense analysis and possibly not be what we expect. Who expects a rainbow to appear when light is passed through something so colorless?

Colins's next stanza has another open invitation for more analysis. He strikes us with the imagery of a mouse that "probes his way out." Compared to the first stanza of light and truth, the imagery of a rodent probing his way out is almost bitter and bleak. The connotation shifts drastically. The idea of a mouse probing his way out indicates a sense of discomfort and entrapment, possibly referring to the way a reader feels when analyzing poetry. But like the image of light, this image of a rodent had to be analyzed in order to be understood, which takes us back to the central contradiction. In addition the shift between the first and second stanza evokes analysis because it is so jarring, it is impossible to not at least try to break down. You can't help but question such an odd, unnatural sense. All these critiques contradicts Collin's plea to just glide across a poem. He's taunting us readers by pleading to go a nice speed limit (I say 50 mph is the perfect drive) yet throws in a speed bump.

As well as Collins's use of imagery, his use of style is also telling. The poem is simply put, short and sweet. The poem is just four sentences that are broken up into stanzas that don't exceed four lines. His use of enjambment continues one train of thought which keeps the poem moving, "I want them to waterski-across the surface of a poem-waving at the author's name on the shore." His style was fairly straightforward and stayed at an even pace. The poem was read at ease with no unnatural pauses or unfamiliar grammar. Collins also avoided rhyme, a common trait in poetry. The lack of rhyme was another accessory to the fluidity and natural vibe of the poem, it made it seem more "every day." Colloquial languag and conversations have little to no rhyme. The poem was all one train of thought that made sense.

His plea is for us readers to not "tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it," but is that not what I, you, or you're English class are doing with the poem? Is it even possible to take a poem and just "hold it up to the light?" Is it really possible to "waterski across the surface of a poem?"

Collins's main emphasis on his plea comes in at the break between stanzas four and five. The idea shifts from light and breezy to dark and aggressive. Throughout the first four stanzas, he uses "I ask" or "I want" to talk about what one should do with poetry, but then by the fifth stanza it shifts to "But they" indicating what is actually done. The word "but" is used to introduce something contrasting, a harsh break that brings out how opposite the two parts are. This highlights what Collins wants us to do [first four stanzas] verses what not to do with poetry. 

His makes it seem clear that his goal is to ask us readers to take poetry for what it is. To read as it is given and to take in quick short breaths. To be natural with it-to experience it. He even accentuates his implication with his choice in imagery and style, but in a way that is unnatural that encourages analysis rather than an easy experience with the poem. Collins is a quite the evil master mind behind this particular literary work of his. Why? Because we are sitting here trying to figure out his main idea. He's supporting his own content in his own poem which is a poem about ignoring content. We're sitting down spending a significant amount of brain power into his poem in "beating it with a hose to find out what it really means." We are over analyzing a poem about not over analyzing. 


