weekend reading
“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.
“Poetry” by Marianne Moore
I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a
high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to
eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless
wolf under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse
that feels a flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician–
nor is it valid
to discriminate against “business documents and
school-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must make
a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
“literalists of
the imagination”–above
insolence and triviality and can present
for inspection, “imaginary gardens with real toads in them,”
shall we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.
September 14th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
“Introduction to Poetry” is very opening. It gives two points of view. The first point of view is positive about getting into poetry. I believe that Billy Collins is an English teacher, or at least portraying one. The second point of view is from a group of people (most likely kids) who despise the very word “poetry”. “But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.” I think that is how most of my peers perceive poetry.
“Poetry”, I thought was extremely well written, which is probably why I didn’t understand most of it. But I think that I got the message in the end. Poetry is real. It has real storys, values, and lessons learned. Sometimes it can be an extention of the author and his or her feelings. Poetry is raw, with raw emotions. A good poet, a “true” poet can make you feel the same feelings that they do. And if you are true lover of poetry, you want to feel all that there is to feel.
September 14th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Looking into a poem you have to be open. Being able to unravel it and see the true or symbolic meaning is important. The only way to understand is to dig in and put yourself in that mind-set or realize the mood or direction the poetry is pointing you in. Good poetry is a composition of words painted into a picture. This shows every nuance of color, every brush stroke of the authors imagination which comes through, allowing for a finished masterpiece to be brought forward into the minds eye.
September 14th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
I thought the poems in the weekender were ironic and funny. They were ironic, because they were poems about how poetry is hard to comprehend.
September 14th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Personification played a huge role in the first poem and seemed open for multiple interpretations on how to read poetry, while the second was saying since poetry is contradictable and thats what makes it good.
September 15th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Since poetry is sometimes hard to understand, its important at least to see the beauty of it. It allows your imagination to go crazy and go down any road it wants, and thats what is so great about it.
September 15th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
The poem “Introduction to Poetry” i find is a very clever way of explaining how most people view poetry. I think that poetry is very hard to comprehend, for most people anyhow. This poem relates to how the meaning of a poem takes awhile to find and that most people get annoyed with trying to figure it out themselves. The line it the poem where it talks about wanting to tie the poem to a chair and torture a confession out of it, I think is mostly referring to people wishing that a poem wouldn’t hide its meanings and just say what its purpose is.
The second poem, talks about similiar things. It refers to how poetry isn’t an easy thing to grasp and understand at first. Both of these poems do a really nice job of referring to what they are trying to convey with certain pictures, and i think that’s what helped me get a better understanding of what the poets are trying to tell us.
September 15th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
In the first poem, “Introduction to Poetry”, the author seems to be saying that poetry can often be over-analyzed. When analyzing a poem some people think that there is always symbolism or a bigger picture that the author is trying to convey. I believe that the author thinks that over-analyzing a poem takes the life and true meaning out of the poem.
Marianne Moore’s “Poetry” tells of how analyzing a poem can take away from how the poem makes you feel while first reading it. This poem also seems to say that imagination is not a crime, and it is important to express imagination in writing.
September 15th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
The poems were both really insightful telling us that we need to put some effort into both reading, and writing poetry. The two examples also tell us that in order to write poerty you need to let your imagination fly. The poems were good advise in how to approch poerty.
September 15th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
It is ironic that both poems are about poetry. The first, “Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins, is about enjoying poetry and the second, “Poetry” by Marianne Moore, is about disliking poetry.
In the first poem, “Introduction to Poetry”, it seems like Billy Collins thinks that poetry can be looked at with too much of an ice-cold eye, looking only for the symbolism or the deeper meaning within the poem. Billy, like myself, thinks that poetry should be read with enjoyment and be made to mean what you want it to.
“Poetry” was more confusing than “Introduction to Poetry”. The language was more difficult to understand and comprehend. But, when I figured out what the poem ment, I thought it was slightly comical how the majority poem explains what it is to hate poetry and only the last little bit shows what it is to like it. I didn’t like the format that this poem was written in because it was like reading a normal paragraph, but with odd breaks and pauses in it.
September 16th, 2007 at 10:34 am
These two poems give two points of insite into how people feel about poetry. A lot of people don’t like it only because they can’t understand it, and like it said in “Poetry” people are that way with everything, not just poetry. “Introduction to Poetry”, in my opinion, was a more enjoyable poem, because of the fact that it was metaphors and symbolism to show how people view/how they should view poems. The second poem “Poetry” was a little harder to grasp. I know that it was talking about poetry, and I know that it was explaining how some people feel about it, I still am a slightly confuesed.
September 16th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Personally I didn’t like either. In “Introduction to Poetry” Big Billy Collins writes about how we should read and take on poetry. Somebody get this man a job as a critic or a teacher.
“Poetry” was the worse of the two. It held my interest about as long as a movie starring Paris Hilton could. I don’t understand why people write poetry about how to read and write poetry. The great Jim Morrison wrote in his poem “Curses and Invocations”, “words dissemble, words be quick, words resemble walking sticks”. This explains what I think is going on. I think that these two people need to help themselves along by writing about what they are writing.
*Not intended to be harsh or rude to anyone or anything, except Paris, you aren’t really that great of an actress.
September 16th, 2007 at 11:36 am
In “Introduction to Poetry”, it shows how there is more to poetry than just understanding it. You need to see the beauty and emotions that are poured into the poem itself. And “Poetry” was kind of hard to grasp the meaning of it, but I think it is trying to say that poems aren’t just words scrambled about on a piece of paper. They have meanings and don’t need complicated words that confuse people to just make you sound smarter. “We do not admire what we cannot understand” is true, but we don’t have to understand it, we just have to comprehend it. And in the end it goes to show that a true poet can perfectly portray the imagery being put into a poem.
September 16th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Both of these poems have really changed my view of poetry in general. I liked the way the first poem by Billy Collins explained the different ways to view poetry. I always look at poetry as something confusing to try and figure out, when the real reason should be to just enjoy it and the meaning will come by itself. Staring at a poem and trying to get the meaning of it will get you nowhere. The second one also explains the same kind of thing. If your intention with a poem is to figure it out, you won’t understand it. You will get the meaning and mabey like the poem if you decide just to read it for the sake of enjoying it.
September 16th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Both poems told you that poetry isn’t written to be analized. Each person has their own way of interpreting a poem, and there is now wrong way. I liked how in “Introduction to Poetry” it gave you both the positive and negative aspects of peotry.
September 16th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
I have never read poems like these. I thought it was a fun way to pick fun at reading poetry. It was ironic that the poems talked about the negatives of reading poetry in a poem. I have to agree with the statement “that we do not admire what we cannot understand,” in the poem “Poetry” by Marianne Moore. I think that hit the nail on the head as to why people don’t enjoy reading poetry. In the poem, “Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins he wants you to enjoy poems instead of over analyzing them.
September 16th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
I thought that the first one had a lot of personification in it. I liked the second poem because it was more down to earth and it just told us the reasons poems are good to read.
September 16th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Poem# 1: People do over-analyze poetry. Read it. Enjoy it. Move on.
Poem #2: Moore hit the nail on the head.
Good poetry has power. Good poetry affects your thoughts and feelings. Good poetry says something.
There is a lot of poetry out there that is colorfully-worded junk. You can’t read one of those poems and decide you hate all poetry. You’ll miss out on some fascinating writing.
September 16th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
I agree with Elissa when she said that the first poem sounds like it was written by a teacher. It seems like the author wants the reader to understand how great poetry is, but the student will not listen.
I thought “Poetry” was a lot harder to understand. It was very confusing. I thought it was kind of weird how the author wrote a poem, and most of the poem was about hating poetry. I don’t understand how the author can hate poetry and like it at the same time. The paragraphs were hard to understand because it seemed like they broke in odd places.
September 16th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Poems are meant to be dove into, and explored in their entirety. They are alive and vibrant with lessons; lessons that will be discovered not by unwilling concentration and forced interpretations. One must understand the poems before they can truly appreciate them.
September 16th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
When poetry is being read it should be approached with an open mind. It is ironic how both poems described the feelings towards poetry today. The first poem described how people should enjoy reading poetry and poems shouldn’t be over-analyzed. The second reading, described when good poetry is written it is easy to understand and can affect the way a person feels about a situation. I think Moore described in her poem the reasons why poems are misunderstood and not well liked. The second poem was easier to follow and understand. Both poems described how poetry is hard to understand and comprehend. All in all, one bad poem should not be the determining factor in if a person dislikes poetry. If so, a person will not absorb other great poetry.
September 16th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I really liked the first poem. It was ironic that is was describing poetry inside of a poem. I liked the way Billy Collins described how people over-analyze poems by saying people tie poems to chairs and torture the confession out of them. I like how the two poems contrast each other. The first poem likes poetry and the second poem dislikes poetry. Poetry is hard to understand sometimes but poems are wonderful writings that need to be read.
September 16th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
These two poems have a lot of symbolism and meaning to them, and one might have to reread the poems a couple of times to grasp the true meanings of what the authors are trying to communicate and portray to the readers. In the first poem, Bill Collins is saying too many people are pushing themselves to understand what a poem is saying. The reader doesn’t just read for enjoyment; he/she reads for comprehension and nothing more. In the second poem, I believe Moore is trying to say that you don’t have to understand something just to admire it.
September 16th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
I thought it was ironic that the poems were talking about poetry inside the poems. The first one was confusing at first, but i realized that it was basically telling us that people think to much about the poem and are trying to hard to understand it, then just getting the whole picture. The second poem was more for me. I liked the part in the poem where it said ‘we do not admire what we cannot understand.’ I don’t like poetry, but maybe thats because i don’t understand it.
September 16th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
I didn’t like either of the poems very much. However, the second one was more understandable in my opinion. In the first poem, I did like that it was describing poetry inside the poem itself. Both of these poems had a lot of personification. I found it ironic that the poems were talking about how poetry is hard to comprehend, yet both poems themselves were slightly wordy and hard to understand. You can’t just read poems and expect to understand them completely. These poems say you should read poetry just to enjoy it.
September 16th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
i love poems that are fun to read. These peoms seemed like when the authors wrote them, they were angry at someone. it was weird and i didnt like it. there was a lot of geed personification in the first one. i liked the imagery the second one gave.
September 16th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
I was more interested in the first poem compared to the second one. I liked how Billy Collins stated that people tie poems to a chair and try to torture a confession out of it. It is true that if people read a poem that is more complex, they automatically dislike poems. One shouldn’t think that way because really great things can come out of these writings.
September 16th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
In the first poem, “Introduction to Poetry”, the author is being open by showing both his point of view and the point of view of most students. He explains how difficult it cant be to get the real meaning of a poem, but it can be done. In the second poem, “Poetry”, Marianna Moore explains how she dislikes poetry. “Poetry” is written different; in a way that most students would get confused about. I like how the two poets contrast what the others opinion is.
September 16th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
The first poem was really fun to picture in your head because the symbolism was so vibrant. It was interesting to me because i could easily relate to it, so i actually enjoyed reading it. Poetry is not something i particulary enjoy, so reading this poem was refreshing, because i feel exsactly what the author is trying to discribe. I try so hard to find out what the poem actually means that i cant enjoy it.
The second poem is a perfect example, I didnt understand it very well, and while the message of the poem was about disliking poetry, it was so sterotypical, because I had no idea what it meant the first time i read through it. It was really ironic because the main message was about not understanding poetry, yet at first I didnt understand that was what it was trying to say. I also think it was trying to say that just because you read one poem that you dont like, doesnt mean you should hate all poetry in general, dont base you thoughts on one piece, focus on the whole.
September 16th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
the writers are talking about how they want people to experience the poems in a beautiful and fun way. they don’t want people to have to do research on a poem. just read it for how it is and get what you can out of a poem and appreciate it.
September 16th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
“Introduction to Poetry”: I believe that it is trying to tell us too just read the poem and take it for what it was written for, do not over read it. Billy Collins wants people just to read poems and take the lesson or meaning from them without over-analyzing the poem.
“Poetry”: In this poem, it is trying to get the reader to understand that poetry is hard to understand, but you should keep trying. I think that Moore is trying to help people read poetry and find something that can come out of ready the poem.
September 16th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
I liked to see both views of the authors on the topic of poetry. Bill Collins talked about the way that he liked poetry and the way that some did not like it at all. “Poetry” by Marianne Moore talked about the way that she really didnt like poetry. Both of the poems were similar in the way of saying that poems have no one way of looking at it. One person can see one thing in a poem, while another person could see something totally different in the same poem
September 16th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
I enjoyed the first poem, “Introuction to Poetry”, a lot better than the second poem, “Poetry”. I belive that the authors of these two poems are telling us that poems are hard to understand and that a lot of people have a hard time understanding what they are about. I think that the first poem was more enjoyable than the second, and liked how Collins said that after telling people to do all of these things with poems, all thay wanted to do was “tie a poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it.”
September 16th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
The first poem was ok. I could understand what it ws talking about because it related the concept to everyday things.
The second poem was too deep, I didn’t get it. And therefore, I didn’t like it. From the way I interpreted it, it was weird that the author was talking about not liking poems- but the author is telling you that… in a poem. Plus, the whole thing seemed like a run-on sentence.
But I do like poetry, just not these ones.
September 16th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
The poems are somewhat confusing, and choppy. I understand that they are talking about poetry in the poem, and they want you to get a better understanding about what poetry is… well… all about, lol. Out of the two poems, I think I like the first one better, because it had better figurative language. They were both interesting, and I am looking forward to discussing them in class tommorow.
September 16th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
I thought both these poems were very interesting. But the first one was much more exciting and kept my attention then the 2nd one did. I’m not a big fan of poetry, but I do enjoy the occasional poesy.
September 16th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
I love how in the first poem the author describes how fun poetry can be when you take the time to think about it. The passege was very moving to me and it really made me stop and think,”What a fun poem.” The poem also tells us though, to not over think it…just read it til you get the gist of it and if you have to, read it once more. Poetry isn’t that difficult.
In the second poem, however, I felt as if the author was critisizing poetry and how hard poetry is to follow. I sort of agree that poetry can be difficult to understand at times, but if you stop to analyze it, it really isn’t hard at all.
September 16th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
I love the first poem, “Introductory to Poetry”. The way Billy Collins metaphorically compares poetry to everyday occurances is insightful. By saying that people want to tie poetry to a chair and torture a confession out of it, I feel that he is portraying a message of how some people automatically discard something complex. They don’t want to dig down into what the author is trying to get across, unless it is spelled our for them in black and white.
The second poem was hard to understand the first time I read through it. I found it odd, yet insightful, declaring how hateful the author was against poetry. I personally think Moore is trying to make readers go beyond what they read, developing it in their mind into something much more that what is origionally understood.
September 16th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Why are both poems about poetry? Both kind of seem to be finding the comparisons of each side of poetry. I did not excatly understand them at first. It took a few different times to read them to get the full explanation.
September 16th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
I didn’t really like either of the poems but the first poem kept my attention more then the second one did. I like how Billy Collins gives both positive and negative things about poetry. What I didn’t like was that both the poems were about poetry. I don’t like poems the way it is and if i am gonna read one i would like it to be about something more interesting.
September 16th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
The first poem was about a person who just wants people to not necessarily understand all poetry but to try. He was saying if you try, then you have a better chance of understanding.
The second poem was more about how poetry is very frusterating when trying to comprehend. But it also says that poetry can provide a lot of valuable information. I think that the author is trying to say that when a poetist knows how to properly write poetry, it can be beautiful and I agree. I liked certain lines of this poem, but like others felt like some parts were confusing.
September 16th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
The first poem was very interesting. I really liked how the author described writing poetry and how people try to understand it. The second poem, in my opinion, was boring. It was hard to keep my attention which made it worst to comprehend.
I love poems, but not when they are about poems themselves.
September 16th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
I like how Billy Collins related the reading of poetry to all of those things. A lot of times, similes help me understand what I’m reading more easily. The second poem lost my interest pretty quickly. If I were a poet, I would try harder not to lose the attention of my readers. I enjoy shorter poems, because they make a point without rambling on about things that just confuse the reader and make them think negatively about poetry.
September 17th, 2007 at 7:13 am
I think both poems have very creative way of explaining the author’s poit of view about poetry. The first poem I felt was the athor explainig how he generallly sees people “treating” poetry. Trying to “beat the meaning out of it” when it is simple to find. I think my favorite of the 2 is the first one i love the way it gives poetry person characteristics. i think i like poetry it really depends on what it is saying and if i can comprehend what it is trying to get across…i once read a whole book with emily dickenson’s poems they were all pretty good! i can’t wait to learn more about poetry!
September 17th, 2007 at 10:21 am
I thought that, “An Introduction to Poetry, ” was a better poem than, “Poetry”. “Poetry”, got confusing and it talked too much about poetry itself. However, both poems successfully explained that poems do not need to be over anlayzed. The poets seemed frusterated that their poems are not understood. Both poems gave me a better approach to reading poems.