“Introduction to Poetry”

The disappointment of Billy Collins is dripping out of the metaphors and simile in “Introduction to Poetry”. The speaker just wants his students to see what he sees in poems. The poems are full of adventure and thinly veiled excitement, if only his students could break through the skin and see it. He draws a comparison to a color slide which is dark and ominous at first glance but once you investigate and hold it up to the light, the vibrant picture shines through. Sometimes however, the poem is more like a beehive, full of pent-up energy just waiting to be released. A poem can be vague and most of the time it takes a lot of searching to find the real meaning. The speaker wants his students to know that there is always a meaning. There is always a light switch even if one needs to “walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch.“ A poem can also be very fun like waterskiing but at the same time, be much deeper than it seems like the lake below the waterskier. Please, for the sake of Billy Collins, don’t try to torture poems, just follow the advice of his metaphors and tease the meaning out of them.