My Choice

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.

Introduction

This section of the literature course is designed to provide an introduction to some of the key ideas about poetry, ideas which some people find difficult and which can make poetry difficult to read. To help us to explore, we'll use a very short, fairly modern poem which is only 26 words long in total but which can be analysed to reveal different layers of meaning. As we move through the different sections of studying the poem one key idea we'll return to again and again is the idea of choice. The poet chooses a subject, chooses the words to explore it, the images to convey meaning, how the poem is punctuated and laid out on the page and provides a title. In this unit we reverse the process, starting with the basic words in the correct order each section concentrates on one set of choices, allowing you to experiment with different choices before revealing the ones actually made by the poet.

Poem Version 1 - The Basic Words

This unit of work will take you through different version of the poem each one adding a different layer to the basic building blocks of the words themselves. But let's start just with the words and with nothing else. There are only 26 of them in this very short poem and in the first slide they are presented sequentially in the form that they appear in the final poem. The line endings have been taken out, as has all the punctuation. We'll look at them later. Your first task is to try to decide where you think the line endings should appear. Now click below to see the basic words of the poem.

Understanding Poetry

Though this section of the course focuses on poetry ,  the comments made here really can refer to any form of art and how we interact with it. The poet writes a poem, the artist paints a picture, the composer writes a song but if no one ever reads the poem, looks at the picture or listens to the music, then what value do any of them have? It can be argued that the last person in the creative chain is the reader, the viewer or the listener. In other words - you.
For example, if you look at a painting or a photograph taken of a place you know well then that experience will be different from looking at a picture of a location which you don't know at all. If you read a book which deals with an activity you know something about let's say sailing or skiing then your experience is different to other people reading the book. We are all individuals and therefore as we read it is a unique individual perspective we bring to the experience. As you work through the exercises and take part in the on-line discussions, try to retain your individual opinion describing it and justifying it to other members of the group.

Assignment:

•  read the poem through once or twice and then write down your first impressions of it (try to write at least 200 words)
• save a copy of your response

Background:
First impressions of a piece of writing can be very important. They allow you to express your immediate thoughts before they have been influenced by discussing the work with others or before you have read the opinions of literary critics and other 'experts'.At this stage your ideas are very new and probably not very carefully thought out but recording your response here will give you a reference point to look back on when we have moved through the various stages of studying aspects of the poem. By that time your views may well have changed.

Discussion Point

Throughout this course we'd like you to take part in a series of discussions which will look at the different aspects how poetry is constructed and how we understand it. So two things to be discussed here: Line Endings:

• where do you think the line endings should go and why?

First Impressions

• what's your first impression of the poem after reading it a few times

After the discussion you can go on and have a look at the original version of the poem which has the actual line endings inserted by the poet. Just one point to make here but an important one. This is the poet's individual response to the material being worked. There is no single 'correct' answer simply a series of different responses. Your response is equally valid.

Poem Version 2 - Line Endings

In the next version of the poem the line endings have been included as they appear in the original poem. Can we stress here, as we will do throughout this exercise, that there is no notion of there only being one 'correct' answer. This is the answer that the poet decided upon as the most appropriate though you might have arrived at a slightly different one. Click on the link below to see the version of the poem with the line endings in place.

Images

Noon and a hazy heat;

a single silver sliver and a dull drone;

the gloved finger poised, pressed:

a second's silence and

oblivion.

The main images used here are rather mysterious. There is the image of the 'single silver sliver', something sharp and menacing and the tone of this is continued by the hint of threat in the 'dull drone' which ends the line. Then there is the image of the 'gloved finger' waiting patiently to do its work. This is not a gloved hand but seems to be a part of the body separated from all the other parts, again continuing the mounting sense of menace and tension in the poem. Images in poetry are often used to create what is known as the 'tone' of the poem.

Techniques

Noon and a hazy heat;

a single silver sliver and a dull drone;

the gloved finger poised, pressed:

a second's silence and

oblivion.

Though this is a very short poem a number of poetic techniques are used.

Alliteration

In this technique, successive words in a piece of writing begin with the same sound and there a number of examples of this in the poem from 'hazy heat' in the first line onwards. Alliteration can be either assonance where repeated initial vowel sounds are used or consonance where repeated consonant sounds are used as in this poem. Well known examples of this can be found in tongue-twisters such as 'round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran'.

Enjambment

This is when the unit of sense of a line deliberately runs over into the next line creating a slight pause in the reading and therefore a sense of expectancy. The final two lines of the poem provide an excellent example of this and the emphasis falls squarely on the single word 'oblivion' in the final line.

Discussion Point 

Review the images and techniques used in the poem. What tone would you say is created by the poet in these 26 words?

Meaning

Ever since the beginning of the study of this poem your main task has been to try to make sense of the 'meaning' of the poem. When described in that way it sounds as if there is only a single meaning that the poem contains which is the same for every reader. But as we pointed out earlier in the study, every reader brings to each new experience of reading a poem all of the life experience that they have had. No two people have exactly the same experience and therefore no two people will have the same sense of the meaning of a poem.

If you click the following link you will be taken to another version of the poem where some extra information on meaning is given on each individual line. You might find this helpful but remember that it does come with a health warning. You might interpret the meaning of the poem and of each line entirely differently from the writer of these lines. Your opinion is just as valid.