submitted by Carl Beck, 

 "Introduction To Poetry"
 
 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. 

	-- Billy Collins 

This poem makes me smile, only because it wasn't until I stopped trying to
understand poetry that I was able to open the gate to the wonderful
playground that poetry can be.  

[this poem is archived, accessible and awaiting your comments at]
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1774.html
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