Billy Collins

Poem One

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.

Reflection

I enjoyed this poem by Collins because it is interesting how he connects poetry to curiosity and exploration. The poem is very upbeat and inviting and I picture the surreal scenarios Collins explains. I really appreciated the fact that he believes that reading poetry is for pleasure and should not be picked through to find the exact meaning. The way Collins uses such elegant yet elementary phrasing such as, "hold it up to the light like a color slide," evokes my feelings and redirects the idea of poetry for me. I used to consider poetry to be hard to understand and very abstract but Collins fun and concrete lines give me a new since of appreciation for the different styles of poetry.

Poem Two

The History Teacher

by: Billy Collins

Trying to protect his students' innocence
he told them the Ice Age was really just
the Chilly Age, a period of a million years
when everyone had to wear sweaters.

And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age,
named after the long driveways of the time.

The Spanish Inquisit

ion was nothing more
than an outbreak of questions such as
"How far is it from here to Madrid?"
"What do you call the matador's hat?"

The War of the Roses took place in a garden,
and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan.

The children would leave his classroom
for the playground to torment the weak
and the smart,
mussing up their hair

and breaking their glasses,

while he gathered up his notes and walked home
past flower beds and white picket fences,
wondering if

they

would believe that soldiers
in the Boer War told long, rambling stories
designed to make the enemy nod off.

Reflection

The image of the children eagerly learning makes it seem like their innocence is still intact just as the poem describes the history teacher. Collins makes the teacher in the poem seem worried and cautious as he teaches his students about the bad in the world. Collins represents the teacher's attitude towards preserving his students through making the tragic events he must teach seem minute, mentioning that the "War of the Roses took place in a garden," or "the Ice Age was really just the chilly age." In the picture above the focus is on a little boy with his hand up. The smile on his face and the eager look in his eye to answer the question makes the students seem untainted by the bad in the world. The picture of the boy shown above would be what the students in the teacher's classroom, in Collins' poem, look like, eager and innocent.

Poem Three

Sonnet

by: Billy Collins

All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now,
and after this one just a dozen
to launch a little ship on love's storm-tossed seas,
then only ten more left like rows of beans.
How easily it goes unless you get Elizabethan
and insist the iambic bongos must be played
and rhymes positioned at the ends of lines,
one for every station of the cross.
But hang on here wile we make the turn
into the final six where all will be resolved,
where longing and heartache will find an end,
where Laura will tell Petrarch to put down his pen,
take off those crazy medieval tights,
blow out the lights, and come at last to bed.

Reflection

In Billy Collin's poem, Sonnet, the reader is evoked by the style and detail used in the poem. Collins does not actually tell a story in the poem, instead, he uses the poem to teach others what a Sonnet is and how to write it. He uses a very informal tone to connect to the readers and acts as if he is talking to the reader in person. He uses phrases such as, "Well all we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now," to directly speak to and show the reader what a sonnet consists, while using a friendly manner and phrases such as, "But hang on here wile we make the turn." Collins seems very genuine, speaking to his audience as if the poem were intended for his comrades and peers. This poem, obviously used as a learning tool, is a creative way the Collins identifies the facts of a Sonnet for his students.