1. 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. surface

2. “ I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide” The poet wants us to see beyond the words. The poet wants us to look at the poem like a doctor looks at his patient’s x- ray.

3. “or press an ear against its hive”. The poet sais that the readers should listen to the poem’s.special sounds

4. “ I say drop a mouse into the poem and watch him probe his way out” The poet wants each student to interpret the poem in his own way, just like a mouse should find his own way to get out of a maze.

5. “Or walk inside the poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch” The poet wants the students to explore the dark room (which is. the poem) with all their senses He wants them to use all their senses in order to understand.the poem’s meaning

6. “but all they want to do is tie the poem to chair with a rope” The poet claims that the students are just reading the poem in a very superficial way, they are not trying to understand its true meaning.

7. They attack the poem instead of really see what it means. “they begin beating it with a hose to find what it really means.

8. Introduction to Poetry