Introduction to Poetry

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.

I decided to do this poem just because this is what I used to do and still probably do. I have never actually looked at its structure. I noticed that all the stanzas are either two or three lines except one that is just one line: "or press an ear against its hive." I don't know the significance of this line. But the hive is the main place where the places are so maybe the author isolates it to show the importance of it.

There is no rhyme scheme which makes it free verse.