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Introduction To Poetry - Billy Collins

This poem is about introducing students to poetry. The speaker asks students to explore poems in imaginative ways like holding them up to the light or walking inside the poem, but the students just want to interrogate the poem for its true meaning through torture instead of playful examination. They beat the poem with a hose to extract its real meaning.

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Julie Berger
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490 views

Introduction To Poetry - Billy Collins

This poem is about introducing students to poetry. The speaker asks students to explore poems in imaginative ways like holding them up to the light or walking inside the poem, but the students just want to interrogate the poem for its true meaning through torture instead of playful examination. They beat the poem with a hose to extract its real meaning.

Uploaded by

Julie Berger
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Name: ___________________________ 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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