Billy Collin's not only an American poet, but a teacher, uses a teacher's voice in "Introduction to Poetry" in order to direct readers in finding the meaning of poems. It is written in free verse, which allows it to have an almost conversational feel. He uses punctuation, and strong imagery and metaphors to develop a flow as opposed to a typical rhyming scheme.The poem begins with delicate metaphors stating how he would like readers to approach interpreting text. The tone then develops into a more excited state with stronger imagery, talking about how the process should be exciting and fun. It finally ends with an almost desperate feeling, and disappointment at how readers really approach interpretation. Collins teaches through this poem that the interpretation of poems and texts should be an enjoyable, organic process, and not forced, as readers can do.

The poem goes through a development of positive to negative imagery.  It follows a pattern of this is how it should be done, "I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light " (Collins 58),  to this how it should feel being done this way, by applying the feeling of freedom and exhilaration of waterskiing, to an incredibly vivid image of the reader beating a poem for the meaning.  The poem begins with several metaphors per stanza, making the poem feel light, and showing the different ways to go about reading a poem. In the fourth stanza it is entirely dedicated to one particle scenery, this is the point that Collin's tone becomes more rushed. The reader can sense he is becoming more and more earnest. The last two stanzas are addressing the same thing, implying Collins is extremely exasperated at the process with which readers interpret poems. His imagery also become much more detailed, the poem is tied to a chair with a rope, and the reader is "beating it with a hose" (Collins 58). The more details he writes, it seems the more passionate he is.

Stanzas one through three express a desire for readers to examine a poem through different mediums and senses. Readers should look at the poem as a picture, he uses the comparison of a color slide. A color slide is essential the negative of an image, colors are inverted, the picture is backwards, and you may not be able to view all the contrast. So, you may get the general idea of the image through the slide, but in oder to see the true image, you need to project the image, shine light through it. This could be taken to mean don't just skim over the top of the text, that there is more detail in it that cannot be seen from a quick once over. In the second stanza he brings in an auditory metaphor about a bee's hive. The idea behind this is the same as the color slide, even if you can't see it, there is more to it. The last reference he makes to deciphering meaning is using a metaphor for touch, going into a dark room (the poem) and feeling for the light switch (the meaning of the poem). The metaphor is saying that in order to find the meaning you must go line by line, taking it in just a little at a time. If one was to barge directly into a dark room, chances are they would end up falling flat on their face. But, if its taken slow and you feel your way around and find the light switch.  The most interesting comparison is to that of a mouse in a maze. Collins states "I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out," (58) this reference brings in a phycological aspect when interpreting text. The point of the test was to test spatial awareness and memory of the test subject, in this case a mouse, the variable were genetic markers that caused the subject to react to the maze in different way. This experiment comparison is explaining the fact that there are a multitude of meanings to a poem. This isn't a new idea, Stanley Fish made the same conclusion in "How to Recognize a Poem When You See One". In Fish's text he explains a sort of experiment he practiced on his students. On the board he wrote the following (8):

Jacobs   Rosenbaum 

Levin

Thorne

Hayes

Ohman (?)

The original purpose was a list of authors for assigned reading for one of his classes. In the class following, he boxed the list and put a page number at the top, he then proceeded to tell the students, all of whom were focused on finding Christian symbols in text, that the list was a poem and that they should interpret it. The incredible thing was, they did, with remarkable depth, and their interpretation was all based on Christianity. Basically, Collins and Fish are saying the same thing, the meaning of a poem is dependent on the reader and his or her background 

The last three stanzas jump from very positive imagery to negative imagery. With the introduction of stanza four, Collins' desperation for readers to "properly" interpret meaning begins to flow out. He goes from simple images to more detailed images, "I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the authors' name on the shore" (58). He dedicated a whole stanza, to the enjoyment he wants readers to feel when they are interpreting poems, compared to the first three stanzas that have multiple metaphors. The concluding stanzas emphasize Collins' exasperations of readers forcing meaning out of poems. He uses strong imagery such as, " tie the poem to a chair with a rope "(58), and " They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means" (58), which is meant to imply the struggle of finding the meaning. This image really applies well to students. When a student is assigned to analyze a text for homework, they begin to force meaning out of the text, which could also reference back to Fish's experiment with his students. However, the violence in the stanza would represent the idea that there is a set meaning to the text, and readers take everything they can to apply it to the meaning. The set meaning is represented as a confession of the poem, Collins' uses the phrase "torture a confession out of it" (58) to emphasize this comparison. Readers always try to find out what the author means through his or her text. However, as Ronald Barthes explains in his text "The Death of the Author" the author has nothing to do with the meaning, "to give a text and Author is to impose a limit on the text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing" (Barthes 5). Collins is tired of readers forcing one specific meaning out of poems instead to using their own background to find a meaning.

Collins has directed readers to a very straight forward meaning. With the teaching tone of the the poem, the poem is told in a personal perspective of Collins. It is his desire for readers to enjoy their experience when deciphering poems, instead of forcing out a meaning because of an assignment, or a predetermined idea of what it means. The goal is to organically discover the meaning to a poem which will lead to a better experience. 

