Introduction to National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month and I thought I'd observe it by posting a poem on Wednesdays, and maybe some more thoughts. I don't know yet. But in the meantime, here's a poem I like very much by Billy Collins that seems like an excellent opener.

Introduction To Poetry

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.