S V A S O L

Introduction To Poetry – Billy Collins

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I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light like a color slide

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or press an ear against its hive.

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I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

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or walk inside the poem's room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

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I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author's name on the shore.

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But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

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They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.