Poetry Reading Response

When reading poetry many people over analyze what they’re reading.  It's simply a habit that the human race has adopted. Instead of over analyzing poems, readers should read from the surface and pay attention to the semi-obvious themes. They should enjoy the poem and understand the meaning almost automatically. The poet, Billy Collins, uses his poem "Introduction to Poetry" to show the audience his opinion on over analyzing. He believes that poems should be read effortlessly, letting the reader easily interpret a theme instead of digging deep for one. Billy Collins expresses his opinion through the personification of a poem.

          Billy Collins’ poem, “Introduction to Poetry”, relays this message throughout the whole poem using personification. The lines "I want them to waterski/ across the surface of a poem" shows the speaker’s opinion very clearly (9-10). By using personification, the poet managed to show how, like a water-ski skims across the surface of the water, the reader's mind should do the same when figuring out the theme/ message of a poem. The speaker believes that the meaning is usually right in front of your face, not deep in the depths of the ocean.

           When someone is reading a poem they may want to over analyze the meaning out of it, but the goal of the speaker is to show the reader to look at the poem simply. 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 that poems should be read to be enjoyed. 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.

Poetry is written to be enjoyed, it’s not written to be analyzed like criminal evidence. 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.

Works Cited

Collins, Billy. Introduction to Poetry. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.