Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Truth

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.

(Billy Collins
)

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Amen, man.

Let the art speak for itself!

According to the woman I was reading last night, all an artist must do is create a place. Make h/er audience see it, feel it, believe in it. And the rest will - magically - take care of itself.

Is that what you economists do?

Want to bike to the capitol for the tortured monks this Saturday?

--Kristi but signed in as Bedlam