Poemspam - Billy Collins

[beandelphiki]

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.


- Billy Collins (US Poet Laureate)


Also: "The Art of Drowning."

Comments

[siegeengine.livejournal.com]

amazing stuff

[diverge.livejournal.com]

I had a book of his poems-- which are incredible. Unfortunately, my ex-girlfriend never sent the book back to me after she took it to read.