Poetry Precis #1 - "Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins

In Billy Collins’ poem, “Introduction to Poetry,” the use of overstated metaphors emphasizes the importance of  reading poetry with an open mind and the importance of uncovering a poem’s true meaning. In the first stanza, when the author writes, “I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light,” he wants his readers to look at the poem from a different angle, with light shining through, revealing its true colors, “like a colored slide.” Or, he continues to write, “press an ear against its’ hive,” really open up your ears. You cannot just read a poem quietly to yourself. To completely understand a poem, you must read it aloud so you can understand not just the structure, but the meter and the rhythm. Collin’s continues, in the second stanza to explain through metaphors the difficulty of navigating through a poem. He writes that they should, “walk inside poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch.” Within a dark room, multiple thoughts consume our minds. We are worried, unsure, lost, feeling misguided, so too, while reading a poem we may feel unsure of the meaning or lost within the lines, but we continue to search for that light switch. Next, “waterski across the surface of the poem,” to get the jist of what the meaning might be. As Collins continues to use imagery and metaphors, he paints clear images in the reader’s mind of what reading a poem may be like. At times hard and confusing, but others, fun and amusing. Finally, Collins explains how readers actually view poems. They want to, “tie the poem to a chair with a rope and torture a confession out of it,” but they do not realise that analyzing and understanding a poem takes time. Collins’ use of the techniques of imagery and metaphors, helps portray how he feels analyzing the true meaning of a poem. He feels it is important and it takes time, patience, a larger understanding and an open mind to completely unveil the meaning of a poem.