Billy Collins as both teacher and American poet, uses an instructor's voice in the poem "Introduction to Poetry" to direct readers in finding the meaning of poems. The poem is written in free verse, which allows it to have an almost conversational feel, by relying on natural diction, not a rhyming pattern. Collins uses punctuation, strong imagery and metaphors to develop a flow as opposed to a typical rhyming scheme. The basic punctuation provides a verbal flow to the poem, similar to how iambic pentameter directs the rhythm of Shakespearean sonnets.b While the imagery in conjunction with metaphors, provides a tonal pattern. The poem begins with delicate metaphors stating how the ideal would be for 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. Through tone, strong imagery, and metaphors, this poem directs that interpreting poems should be an enjoyable, organic process, and not forced.

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. The fourth stanza is entirely dedicated to one particular image, and the tone becomes more rushed. The reader can sense the earnest feeling of how readers should go about interpreting text. The last two stanzas imply an exasperation at the process with which readers interpret poems. The imagery also become much more detailed and graphic, for example, the poem is tied to a chair with a rope (Collins, 58), and the reader is "beating it with a hose" (Collins, 58). The more details written makes the tone seem more passionate.

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, using a comparison of art: "hold it up to the light like a color slide" (Collins, 58). A color slide is essentially the negative of an image, colors are inverted, the picture is backwards, and all contrast may not be visible. So, the general idea of the image can be seen, but in order to see the true image it needs to be projected and light shone through. Meaning, 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 there is use of an auditory metaphor using a bee's hive, "press an ear against its hive" (Collins, 58). The idea behind this is the same as the color slide, even if the object is not seen, there is more to it. The last reference made uses a metaphor for touch: "walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch" (Collins, 58), implying that in order to find the meaning one must go line by line, taking it in just a little at a time. If a person were to barge directly into a dark room, chances are he or she would end up falling flat on their face. If it is taken slow the light switch can be found, and the person will not fall.  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 psychological aspect when interpreting text. The point of the experiment was to test spatial awareness and memory of the subject. 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 by comparing a reader to a mouse in a maze of a poem. This is not 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. He wrote a list of names on the blackboard, 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, both ideas are the same, the meaning of a poem is dependent on the reader and his or her background. 

In contrast to the light feeling of the first half of the poem, the last three stanzas are where tone becomes more aggressive. With the introduction of stanza four, the desperation for readers to "properly" interpret meaning begins to flow out. The images go from simple to more detailed, "I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the authors' name on the shore" (58). The whole stanza is dedicated to the enjoyment readers should feel when they are interpreting poems, compared to the first three stanzas which contain multiple metaphors. The concluding stanzas emphasizes the annoyance of readers forcing meaning out of poems with use of 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). This scene is meant to imply the struggle of finding the meaning. Students tend to be the suspect in this case. When a student is assigned to analyze a text for homework, they begin to force meaning out of the text, which could 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 the confession of the poem, the phrase "torture a confession out of it" (58) emphasizes 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 an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing" (Barthes 5).  Readers force one specific meaning out of poems instead to using their own background to find a meaning for themselves.

"Introduction to Poetry" directs readers to a very straight forward meaning. With the teaching tone of the poem, it is read as a lesson for readers. The desire is to enjoy the process of 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. 

