Faculty FrontDoor

Mr. DJ Rodriguez

As a child, I always had a book in my hand. I have come to understand that literature is meant to be enjoyed, not to be used as a torturous tool. Literature requires imagination and personal perspective to unlock meaning. I always say literature is a nebulas thing. We often cannot lock down a definitive answer like we can with a math problem. What I see may not be what you see, and vice versa.

In the poem below, Billy Collins advises us to experience literature. If we over analyze, we miss the beauty of it.

"Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins

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.