Poetic Techniques In Introduction To Poetry By Billy Collins

Billy Collins expresses that poetry is more than just a written piece of work but something that is supposed to be felt in his poem called “Introduction to Poetry.” Collins shows us that meaning of his poem by several examples that he gives throughout the poem. One of those examples are shown when he says “I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide” (Collins, Billy). In that example, Collin is asking that you examine the poem to find its meaning like you examine a color slide against light. Collins knows that when you have a color slide, you will examine it very closely against the light, and he wants you to examine the poems as closely as you examine the color slide. Collins shows us that he wants us to jump

Collins himself was the speaker and author of this poem. When learn that Collins himself was the author and speaker of the poem when he says, “I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide” (Collins, Billy). When Collins says I ask them, it shows that he is the author and speaker. An example that I find is the huge difference between the tone of the last two paragraphs between the rest of the paragraph. Collins uses a cheerful tone in his first five paragraphs of the poem when he is explaining how people should examine a poem, but then changes to an unpleasant tone when he starts explaining how people examine a poem. This poetic device helps us understand how Collins feels about how we examine a poem and how he really wants us to examine a poem. Another poetic device Collins used in his poem is metaphors. A good example of a metaphor is “walk inside the poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch” (Collins, Billy). The reason that is a metaphor is because a poem is compared to a room. All the metaphors used throughout the poem helps us understand just how much Collins wants us to dive in deep and examine a poem to understand the meaning of the