Explication of Introduction to Poetry

In the poem "Introduction to Poetry", by Billy Collins the speaker compares a poem to many other things through metaphors a similes and also uses strong imagery. First a poem is compared to a color slide using a simile, then t is compared to a hive. The speaker compares a poem to a dark room or a maze because he wants the reader of the poem to analyze the poem and look for different possibilities of what it could possibly mean. He wants the reader to "feel the walls for a light switch" (8) in other words, not look to be given an answer but rather come up with one on his own find a meaning of his own for the poem. The speaker wants every reader to take his or her own ideas and meanings away from each poem they read. The messages of poems are not the same for everybody that is why each person must "feel" their way through each poem as if in a lightless room.

Next a poem is compared to the surface of the ocean. This is a great comparison because the ocean is known for being deep and endless as are the possibilities of what a reader can do with a poem. A reader can look at a poem from the surface level or dig deeper to find its many other meanings that lie in deeper waters. He says he wants readers to be "waving at the author's name on the shore" (11) and to me this meant that he wants the readers to consider what the author may have meant in his writing but not let it control what they take from the poem. This is because the speaker wants each individual to find what the poem means to them.

He then compares the poem to a prisoner, being tied "to a chair with rope / and torture a confession out of it" (13-14). In this part of the poem the speaker is referring to the readers who do not want to analyze poetry and come up with their own meaning but instead want the answer to be given to them. The speaker resents these kinds of readers and wishes they could see poetry as more of an adventure, where one can discover new meanings throughout. The speaker does not want poems to be tied down by the reader because there are so many possibilities within each poem if only the reader is willing to "feel the walls for a light switch" or "water-ski across the surface". The speaker wants poetry to mean more than a simple answer, he wants it to have individual meaning for each person that comes across it.