Bringing Poetry to Life: Billy Collins

One of the most appealing aspects of Billy Collins' poetry is the lighthearted nature he uses to present serious subjects. He has been admired for his ability take a serious subject and present it as a playful visual image. In "Introduction to Poetry", Collins uses personification and imagery to build a comprehensible and entertaining explanation of the serious message this poem holds for his audience.

In "Introduction to Poetry", Collins brings poetry to life, by giving a poem the traits of an animate object. He does this to appeal to his audience, by covering his deeper message with a lighthearted outer shell that makes the poem more entertaining. Collins feels that sometimes writers intend to be vague and that students often try to pull concrete meanings from words meant only to evoke emotion. He asks his students to examine a poem the same way they would a color slide, as if his students could really hold the poem up to a light to see the meaning in it. He thinks his students try so hard to find meaning in poems, that they get away from the intended message. He writes, "But all they want to do/is tie the poem to a chair with rope/and torture a confession out of it" (12-14). He uses personification here to create a vivid mental image of the way his students rip good poetry apart in an attempt to find significance in it.

Collins camouflages his serious message in a witty description by creating an image of the struggle to find meaning in a poem. He uses real situations where a person or animal might feel lost to illustrate how lost one can become when trying to interpret poetry. He cleverly writes, "I say drop a mouse into a poem/and watch him probe his way out"(5-6). With these lines, Collins turns the poem into a maze that a mouse would have to maneuver through. He also creates a situation that most students could personally identify with. Collins sets up a parallel between his students' effort, and walking around in a dark room looking for the light switch. This makes it easier for his audience to understand the frustration of trying to pull meaning from a poem where it can not be found. Collins wants his students to examine what the author of poems is writing and not analyze the poem too much. He states that he wants his students to skim the surface of a poem in the same way a water-skier would the water. He wants them to take the poem at face value and not try to dig deeper into what the author is saying.

In "Introduction to Poetry", Collins uses personification and imagery to create a memorable and compelling portrait for his audience. Collins' point to his students is that they should simplify the way they interpret poetry. He uses his various images to captivate and retain his audience's attention in order to convey this message.