Billy Collins

 Billy Collins was the American Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003.  That seems a pretty short period to fill this role. I suppose they must have fixed terms over there or do they stand for election. 


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 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.

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