Introduction to Poetry, You´re Missing, and My Papa´s Waltz

“Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins

People are apt to learn new information, but it takes time, practice, and a good teacher, in order to do it correctly and to retain understanding. This poem shows the author’s (a teacher’s) frustration towards the elementary mistake that inexperienced readers or students make when poetry is first introduced. Unable to read the poem properly, they often do not capture a poem’s natural beauty and truth. The author says to observe a poem to see its true colors or its natural state (590; lines 1-5). He wants readers to search the “surface of the poem” to see a glimpse of the deeper side of the poem— to see its meaning and understand (lines 9-11). However, the author simply sees people rushing through the rhythm, the flow of the words, misunderstanding the lines (lines 6-9). The author wants readers to “feel” and experience that which is “inside the poem’s room” (590; lines 7). To be part or one with the poem is the key to finding understanding. Standing outside the room merely staring through a glass expecting the light to shine through (picture an interrogational room) will not allow for understanding. In doing this, “they” inadvertently and disgracefully “torture a confession out of it” —the poem (590; lines 12-14).

I relate to this poem. Mainly because I agree with the author’s argument that sometimes people get too aggressive in finding a quick and overly significant meaning to a poem. Because of this, readers often struggle to find the poem’s meaning. Thus, they distort it and misconstrue it, to find an understanding that supposedly is always hidden within the words’ natural meanings (finding what it really means) (590; lines 16). It is nice to see that someone else shares my dislike ...

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...tz”, it reflected much of how most if not all young children enjoy spending that bonding time with their parents. Leading one to reminisce, I recall anxiously waiting for my dad to come home to play cards together. It made no difference to me how sweaty and tired he came home from work. A nice, simple poem can allow one to reflect and see those memories with a pleasant outlook even if they might not have been so pleasant then.

Although, the author Theodore Roethke had a mental illness, for which he was hospitalized, he still managed to write many works of poetry. His father worked in a greenhouse, which inspired many of Roethke’s writings. As a young boy Roethke’s father and uncle died. This affected him negatively. However, he managed to continue with life and graduate from college, later teaching in a few colleges, where he continued to write until his death.