Poetry Billy Collins Analysis

Very often readers approach literature with an attitude of finding the big message behind the author’s motives, rather than dissecting the challenges that they present themselves. The challenges that the reader experiences is diminished just to skip to the conclusion for the reward of personal growth without the solutions to get there. Unfortunately, the actions of finding the bigger message is most common in the literature of poetry when humans are asked to approach any sort of poem. Approaching a poem with such actions would be unsuccessful as a result to poems being short and concise making them much more than just the words on the paper. In novels the details of the storyline is revealed throughout the story, unlike poems every word is …show more content…
Yet an actual reader is most likely to approach a poem with a negative kind of manner with zero sense of interest. The last two stanzas of the poem really interprets tone and imagery in the perspective of “they”, which is represented as the reader. The poet is not expecting readers to approach the poem with a negative mindset, as demonstrated when Collins illustrates the “poem” as a “prisoner” tied to a chair and tortured with a hose confines an alert to the reader. The sense of the poem being beaten up by the reader adds a sarcastic, yet humorous tone to the whole poem, guiding the incorrect attitudes towards poetry, hoping to alert the readers at the same time. In fact, the choice of words that the poet chooses affects the reader’s emotions creating them to come to a realization to their interpretation of the poem.The vividry of a prisoner being beaten develops a threat to the reader’s mind, but it also symbolizes a time for a reflection. The reader must not misinterpret the concept that Collins is trying to remind and teach them that they must approach a poem with patience. Lack of patience creates the reader to have no appreciation or curiosity to explore the poem, which makes it hard to be observant to the experiences that the poem …show more content…
It is impossible to get every aspect of a poem by reading it over only one time thinking that the poem is fully understood. For instance, when we meet someone new over some coffee it is impossible to understand all of their likes and dislikes, or what makes them tick through a one time session. If we make any strong opinions upon sitting down for the first time we would then be making assumptions and judgements that would not be legitimate. To make any judgements upon a person we must sit down with them a couple of times to visualize and experience their battles that they had under gone to have such a personality. Equivalent to a poem, we must sit down with the work a couple of times to read it over. Every time the poem is read over we already are developing different perspectives when reading, because each time the reader’s emotions will be different or similar with a slightly different outlook on life due to events that had happened in