Introduction To Poetry Analysis Essay

Poetry Analysis Poetry has been around for a very long time, and although it is often cherished and loved, we as readers do not understand what the meaning behind a poem really is. This is focused on in the short poem, “Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins. In his work the speaker of the poem uses the poetic elements: diction, figurative language, and imagery. The speaker uses diction, through the choice of words to create the connotation, or how the words affect you. The speaker uses figurative language to help us easily understand what we as readers do, by comparison between unalike items. Lastly, the speaker uses imagery throughout the poem, to give us the idea of what is trying to be conveyed to us. All of these poetic elements are found inside the poem giving us an idea of the theme. The theme that the speaker is trying to help us understand, is that we as readers should enjoy the poem for its quality or content, and go more in depth in our thinking, rather than just sitting there trying to figure out what it means by not opening our eyes. Diction is very heavily influenced in the poem, mainly because of the way that the words

We know this because the speaker says that we as readers do not take the time to understand what is being said. This is shown when the speaker says, “All they want to do / is tie the poem to a chair with rope” (13-14). This means that we try to hold the poem in place and make sure that it cannot move or be free while we study it. We even go to the extreme just to figure out what the message of the poem is: “They begin beating it with a hose / to find out what it really means” (15-16). This is where we learn and reflect back as readers that we do not take the time to appreciate the poem for what it is really worth, but try to find out what it means by not learning from it, and try to go too in depth as to what the poem actually is