"Introduction to Poetry" and Reaction

Introduction to Poetry
Billy Collins

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.

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This poem is about how poetry is for enjoyment, not for precise answers. In the line, "I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out," I took it as how poems can be confusing, but the can be understood. We just have to look around for the answer. I also felt that in the lines, "I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore," that the reader is supposed to take the poem for what it is, and not to dive too deeply into what the meaning could be. I also thought that the reader should acknowledge the poet, but that the reader should not judge the poem based on who wrote it. In the final two stanzas, the poem talks about how the readers want to beat the emotion and the feeling out of a poem just to get a specific answer. This is not the reason for poetry, though, and that's what this poem is about.