A Poem for a Thursday #200

This is my 200th poetry post. When I started featuring poetry over four years ago I never imagined I would find 200 poems I liked. I never imagined I would own a selection of poetry books. I certainly never imagined that I would become someone who enjoyed poetry. I had always liked the occasional poem or two but poetry in general left me cold. The memory of high school English classes where we were forced to analyze line by line and discuss the meaning and motivation of every poem was definitely still influencing how I felt about poetry. However, I was reasonably sure I was missing out on something amazing because I didn’t fully appreciate poetry. I would still say I don’t fully appreciate poetry but I can say that there are at least 200 poems that I really, really like. Honestly, that makes me very happy. Maybe I can keep this going and find another 200 poems I like.

Here is poem number 200. It is by Billy Collins and it says a lot about poetry and how people frequently approach it.

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means. 

Introduction to Poetry
Billy Collins