“Introduction to Poetry” – A Poem for Saturday
I absolutely love this poem by Billy Collins because it reminds me to take INTERPRETATION a little less seriously, to invite the poem – or biblical passage – to delight and woo, to dance and sing its way into your heart. I think if readers could remember this, poetry – and the Bible – would be a lot more fun to read. And I know that if preachers could remember this, sermons would be a lot more interesting.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend.
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, from The Apple that Astonished Paris, 1996
I write poetry myself and I totally agree, don’t worry how it will be interpreted, just know yourself, have fun with it and write from the heart! I loved the poem, please send more.
I loved the poem…thanks for sharing!
I love it! Just what I needed today as I start collecting thoughts for my next sermon. Cheers!
I taught literature at the university for 35 years and used this poem often at the beginning of my classes. The discussion was always lively, and at some point it would always arrive at the same two points: students wanted to know THE meaning of a poem, and students were afraid they would be wrong in their response. It seems to me that the same is true of our reading of Scripture, and so we close ourselves to the possibilities of insight and we enslave ourselves to the authority of single readings. Thanks for posting this poem.
Ah! the “answer” on how to offer a Walter Wink interpretation of Matthew 5 without letting it stifle congregants’ engagement.