Introduction to Poetry

The formal title of Billy Collins’s “Introduction to Poetry” stands in stark contrast to the otherwise playful lines found within the body of the poem itself. Resembling a beginner level course of study, the poem’s title asserts that readers are about to learn the fundamentals of poetry in a very rigid and academic way. However, the tone of the poem is unexpectedly light. The speaker does not lecture students; instead, the speaker creates a more colloquial discourse, asking them to bring imagination and creativity into the classroom (Line 1). The beginning of “Introduction to Poetry” is not as strict or stuffy as readers anticipate from the title, and through this juxtaposition, Collins begins to deconstruct the rigidity of traditional poetic pedagogy by encouraging students to play with language in the same way that he does (see: Themes “Methods of Teaching”).

Collins utilizes detailed figurative language to establish the speaker’s fun and fluid method of teaching. Stanza 1 begins with a simile: A figure of speech that compares two dissimilar things, commonly signaled by the words “like” or “as” in a line of poetry. Lines 1-3 compare “a poem” to being “like a color slide,” a transparent image that can only be seen if it is held “up to the light” (Lines 1-3). By making this comparison, Collins argues that a poem, much like a color slide, appears dark and unclear until the reader actively engages with it, looking beyond what they see on the surface. The speaker asks students to approach poetry with an initial curiosity, starting their analysis by looking at a poem from different angles in order to reveal the complex images it holds inside.

Stanzas 2-5 are rich with metaphors. Metaphors are figures of speech that act as exact comparisons between two unrelated things. A poem is not just “like a color slide” anymore (Line 3), but is also a “hive” buzzing with bees (Line 4), a “room” that readers can place animals or themselves inside of to explore (Line 7); a poem is a lake for readers to “waterski / across the surface” of and become fully immersed (Lines 9-10). This repetition of metaphor within the middle stanzas of the poem allows Collins to convey vivid imagery that goes beyond literal interpretations of poetry. This metaphorical language transports students outside of the classroom, tapping into their imaginative capacity that the speaker argues is just as important to their critical thinking as logic and reasoning. The specificity of Collins’s images make poetry that much easier to comprehend.

Collins uses active, precise verbs throughout the entire poem to ensure that students (and readers) remain engaged in the poetic analysis. The speaker does not tell students to simply read the poem, but rather, to “hold,” “press,” “drop,” “walk,” “feel,” and “waterski” through it (Lines 2-9). This use of active voice characterizes poetry as a genre that requires a hands-on approach; it requires students to become active participants as they read, write, and analyze poetry.

Collins engages a new sense with each new simile and metaphor introduced. The speaker asks students to use their sight when first examining a poem “like a color slide” (Line 3). They must next listen to a poem by “press[ing] an ear against its hive,” and then enact their sense of touch to “walk inside the poem’s room / and feel the walls for a light switch” (Lines 4, 7-8). Collins argues that poetry is not just something to force meaning out of, but something to experience to its fullest capacity. The speaker is critical of the fact that college-age students have strayed away from using the original tools for critical thinking they learned in childhood (i.e. their five senses). However, Collins asserts that this childlike wonder and exploration is imperative to finding meaning not just in poetry, but in life (see: Symbols & Motifs “The Five Senses”).

The speaker warns against overanalyzing for the sake of taking just one meaning from a poem; however, the students do not heed this advice. There is a notable tonal shift from Stanza 5 to Stanza 6, where the poem begins to take a dark turn. While the first five stanzas are extremely playful, written with a levity that matches the quirky, fun, and specific images, the final two stanzas are significantly more rigid and strict, written with a tone of darkness and despair.

The students become the main subject in the final two stanzas, as the speaker laments: “all they [the students] want to do / is tie the poem to a chair with rope / and torture a confession out of it” (Lines 12-14). The personification of the poem, or technique of figurative language that ascribes human characteristics to a non-human subject, makes the poem itself the victim of analysis (Line 14). Suddenly, all of the joy and absurd creativity the speaker attempted to instill in the students disappears as they “begin beating it [the poem] with a hose / to find out what it really means” (Lines 15-16). This abrupt shift in both tone and imagery brings readers to the startling conclusion that students believe there can be no joy in learning. Collins is extremely critical of the education system, taking issue with the violent approach of rote memorization, and reading literature for the correct answer, instead of for the joy of language (see: Themes “Professor Versus Student Perceptions of Poetry”). Stanzas 6 and 7 highlight the fact that students harm poetry by restricting it, trying to distill it down to one meaning alone. The speaker knows that there is no way to solve for x in poetry like a standard math equation, but is defeated by the poem’s end having not been able to convey this to the students of “Introduction to Poetry.”