I’ll be teaching a workshop at the Cuenca International Writers Conference at the end of May, titled Poetry as Story Telling. I’ve been gathering bits and bobs to include in a Power Point presentation.
I came across this poem by Billy Collins, and although I won’t be using it for the workshop, it made me smile.
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
Sorry, that’s me. Poetry hasn’t been my genre. 😕
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heh heh. That’s okay. One of the things I’ll be talking about in my workshop is how much poetry is a part of our world. From advertising jingles to Shakespeare!
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This takes me back to those ‘Literature’ classes in my high school and college days.
How true it is that poetry gets beaten down and pulled apart when sometime a poem just IS. Not every poem has secret meanings and shouls be analyzed to death. Sometimes a poem merely needs to felt. Let it just be lovely. ❤
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I like to say that poetry bypasses the mind and moves straight to our heart.
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