Introduction to Poetry

BY 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.

Billy Collins, “Introduction to Poetry” from The Apple that Astonished Paris. Copyright � 1988, 1996 by Billy Collins. Reprinted with the permission of the University of Arkansas Press.

Source: The Apple that Astonished Paris (1996)

1. VISUAL JOURNAL: What is poetry?

2. VISUAL JOURNAL: I am....(a poet, creative...)

3. VISUAL JOURNAL: Transcribe and Doodle "Introduction of Poetry" by Billy Collins

4. VISUAL JOURNAL: List Fears and Dreams

Share and Write,
Share and Write.
A few quotes to ponder on fear and desire:

“Man is his desire.” - Aristotle

"All men by nature desire knowledge." Aristotle

"Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil." - Aristotle

"Courage is knowing what not to fear." - Plato

Here's two more that may be worth thinking about:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

- Marianne Williamson

"A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, Nothing else."

- Gandhi