(no subject)
over on fhdc, there's a thread for poem in your pocket day. and even though i'm not from new york, i'm doing it. ha! take that, world.
i was going to go with "not touching", and then i was going to go with adrienne rich, who graces my keira-as-guinevere icons. and then i surprised myself by going meta.
it will be in my pocket as soon as i put on clothes. and here it is:
Introduction to Poetry - 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 water-ski
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.
i was going to go with "not touching", and then i was going to go with adrienne rich, who graces my keira-as-guinevere icons. and then i surprised myself by going meta.
it will be in my pocket as soon as i put on clothes. and here it is:
Introduction to Poetry - 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 water-ski
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.