Introduction to poetry

So, I see that the Library of Congress has Billy Collins' "Introduction to Poetry" posted on their site. Good for them! Bruce Weber called him “the most popular poet in America” in no less etheric a place than the New York Times, so I guess it's kinda plebian to like Billy Collins these days, but still, I think maybe he nailed it.

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...

For some light amusement, check out the whole poem. (My good friend Mr. Google tells me that it's posted about 4,640 places on the web... but it's officially still Mr. Collins' property, and so I'll let you go somewhere else for the whole thing.)

Part of Library of Congress' "Poetry 180" project-- 180 poems on the web.