Poetry Appreciation (less spasmodic, of course) continues this week as I've not even scratched the surface of what a "proper" down & dirty poetry week might consist of......and there are still so many of you that were interested in contributing. So, just when we thought we were safe and could shrug off that poetry nonsense (complete with eye-roll) to get back to more bookish pursuits, the week claims another week for itself. Should be fun, let's see where this goes.
While it seemed far too obvious to begin the first poetry week with a poem by our poet laureate, eight days in seems like a fine time to point you towards one of Billy Collin's poems that captures the very reason I wanted to have a down & dirty poetry week in the first place:
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 a poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to water-ski
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.Copyright 2001 Billy Collins
Excerpted from Sailing Alone Around the Rom, New and Selected Poems
This sums up my academic poetry experience quite well. You?
