Masland Library Blog

April is National Poetry Month. For some, this brings a happy reminder to quiet nights spent curled up in a corner with a slim, old-smelling book. For others, it brings the feeling of immediate incarceration within a bare, near-windowless classroom with badly-photocopied sheets being passed along the desks. But, in general, poetry is not approached with ambivalence.

Almost anyone who had to take any sort of English class knows the challenge (or tedium, depending on the perspective) of taking in a poem. I remember being told to explicate a poem that was written by a man in an insane asylum about how wonderful and angelic his cat was. My teacher did not appreciate my conclusion that the poem meant that the man was exactly where he needed to be. But, at the same time, though rather disgusted with that particular example, I still found myself stealing off with the poetry anthology, wanting to absorb more of the curious words.

One of the poets who I discovered during high school was Billy Collins. I like to think that he understands the inherent frustration in tackling poetry, but I could be wrong. At the very least, here’s his 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.

I doubt that the Academy of American Poets will make anyone magically begin to like poetry by instituting this monthlong celebration. But for anyone who is loves poetry already or who maybe is interested in learning more about how poetry works, the library has a display that contains guides to poetry and a sampling of works from a variety of poets. Read with joy.

abbie.


Collins, Billy. The Apple That Astonished Paris: Poems. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas, 1996. Print.