National Poetry Month

That's right people, after a close to 6 month absence from blogging, National Poetry Month has brought me out of my lack of inspiration.

I HATED poetry in high school, for the most part.  But my senior year, I came to love the works of John Donne, including his Holy Sonnets.  In college, I found more that I liked about poetry than I disliked, and now as a high school teacher, I love poetry.

Now, not all poems are equal, and i do like some poems that are slightly odd, but I like what I like. In honor of this month long celebration, I will periodically post some poems that I enjoy.

This first one is dedicated to my students, and anyone else who struggles with poetry.  I've learned that sometimes it is best just to try not to figure a poem out, but instead, just read and enjoy.

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 our what it really means.