Poetry

08/29

The poem I chose was “Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins. Collins writes this poem talking about all of the ways that people should be interacting with poems. He says that he wants people to let the meaning come out of the poem naturally as an image would come from a color slide when held up to the light. He also wants people to read the poem and try not to dig too far into the meaning. He says he wants people to “waterski / across the surface of a poem,” this meaning he doesn’t want the reader to dive too far into the poem and find some meaning, rather he wants the reader to just enjoy the poem for what it is. Collins also says how he does not want people to deal with poems. He wants to make sure that people are not trying to force meaning out of a poem. He says that “all [people] want to do / is tie the poem to a chair with rope / and torture a confession out of it.” He thinks this is the improper way to deal with poems because he believes that the best way to deal with a poem is by reading it and letting the poem speak to the reader, rather than the reader trying to force meaning from it. Because of his use of imagery his ideas were more precise, and I think that made Collins more successful in getting his point across in the poem.

9/5

I feel like after reading other people’s papers I need to create a stronger introduction and conclusion. I think my introduction paragraph needs to have more detail about the poet or his reasoning for writing the poem. I also feel like I need to make sure that I have more varied sentence structure.

Introduction to Poetry Analysis 

Billy Collins wrote the poem “Introduction to Poetry,” with the intention of people beginning to read and interact with poetry in a newer and, in his eyes, a better way. In his short poem, he bluntly states that he wants people to let the meaning come naturally from the poem, rather than scholars and students over-analyzing it and trying to force meanings that might not even be there. He uses a number of different literary devices in his work, but the most noteworthy of them is his imagery and how it brings to life his brilliant analogies. Collins uses the imagery to help create metaphors that, ultimately, display the true meaning of his poem – meaning should come naturally from a poem and not be forced. 

Every stanza is filled to the brim with easily relatable imagery. In the first four stanzas, he appeals to three different senses: sight, touch, and hearing. In the first stanza he inspires the audience’s sight by referencing holding a color slide in light to view its image. This image might be a bit dated, but nonetheless, most people can remember holding up slides in the light to try to get a glimpse of their pictures. The second sense he references is sound; in the second stanza he tells the reader to, “press an ear against its hive.” Although not explicitly stated, the reader can almost imagine the low droning sound that would come from the hive in the poem. The last sense that he refers to in the poem is the sense of touch. In the fourth stanza he says to “feel the walls” of a poem, searching for the light switch. In this form of imagery, he unequivocally states the sense that he is referring to, unlike in the other examples he uses. It’s a sense that is the most relatable because everyone has, at some point, walked into a dark room and had to blindly feel around in the dark to find the light switch. The other examples are also relatable, but color slides are not as prevalent as they used to be for the current generation, and most people are so terrified of being stung that they would never hold their ear against a hive. Feeling for a switch is something that has happened to most people and will last as long as switches do. The imagery in this poem creates the other literary devices that Collins uses in the poem. The most prevalent of these is his use of metaphors.

Collins’ use of imagery is essential because it brings to life the metaphors that give the poem so much meaning. The first time he uses a metaphor is the second stanza, where he makes the poem into a hive and allows the audience to imagine placing their ear up to it and listening to its buzzing. This metaphor, that the poem is a hive that one can place their ear against to listen to, is only made possible by the imagery of a humming, buzzing hive containing a swarm of bees. The sounds that come from an active hive do not have to be forced, and this metaphor he uses gives the same idea to the poem. The next instance of metaphors in the poem is in the next stanza, where he says, “drop a mouse into a poem / and watch him probe his way out.” In this line he makes the poem into a maze for a mouse to poke its way through. While he does not explicitly say that the poem is this maze, the action of a mouse poking around until it finds the exit naturally brings this idea out. This idea that the mouse will naturally find its way out of the maze shows Collins point that the poem will give meaning to the reader. Yet another metaphor that he uses in the poem is in the next stanza where he says, “walk inside the poem’s room / and feel the walls for a light switch.” In this stanza he is more directly making the poem into a room and telling the audience to feel its walls. This idea that the poem is a room is one of his most direct metaphors; most of his other uses more allude to the poem being something it is not. 

Collins uses the imagery in his metaphors to drive home his idea that poetry should tell the meaning themselves and that the audience should not try to force meaning out of a poem. Collins really wants to show people that poems will tell the audience its meaning without having to beat the meaning out of it. Overall, he was very successful in getting his point across, and that is due in part to his wonderful use of metaphors and the imagery that made them more realistic.

9/17

I feel as if the textual analysis paper went fairly well for me. I feel as if I had a strong thesis and I carried it through the paper. I do feel as if it could have been a bit less wordy and a bit more focused on the application of the examples I used to my main point. Next time I will definitely give myself more time to proofread thoroughly and make sure that all of my points are exact and not too redundant.