Poetry Reading Response *DRAFT*

            In this world, anything and everything is over analyzed, whether it's something someone says, or the way someone looks at you. It's simply a habit that the human race has adopted. The poet Billy Collins uses his poem "Introduction to Poetry" to show the audience his opinion on over analyzing. He expresses his opinion through the personification of a poem.
            Poets often write poems with obvious meanings, trying not to leave room for the over analyzers in the world that want to change the poem's meaning. The lines "I want them to waterski/ across the surface of a poem" shows the speakers opinion very clearly (9-10). By using personification, the poet managed to show how, like a waterski skims across the surface of the water, the reader's mind should do the same. The speaker believes that the meaning is usually right in front of your face, not deep in the depths of the ocean.
            Over analyzing is so easy to do that it has almost become a habit to us as humans, and now, it's all everyone wants to do. This is shown in the lines "But all they want to do/ is tie the poem to a chair with rope/ and torture a confession out of it" (13-15). This quote expresses the speaker's opinion very well. By using personification the poet shows that all he wants is for his poem to be read and enjoyed, not for every line to be ripped apart and deciphered like a code. The speaker wants his poem to be enjoyed and for the meaning to be understood almost automatically.
            If people were to over analyze everything, everyone ever said to them, we would end up interpreting different and wrong ideas. And that is exactly what would happen if you were to over analyze poetry. The poet's original meaning would get lost in new meaning that may not really make sense. Over analyzation creates an unnecessary illusion within the readers mind.