In Billy Collin's poem “Introduction to Poetry,” the speaker takes on the role of a teacher tasked with teaching poetry to reluctant students. Collins attempts to convince the audience that poetry is not such a difficult part of literature to understand and reminds them of the main reason it exists: for entertainment and relaxation. Collins uses metaphors and imagery throughout the poem and adds irony to reinforce the ideal that poems should not be read just to “decode” them. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay First, it is important to note what perspective Collins uses throughout the poem. The reader assumes that the speaker is a school teacher. Furthermore, the speaker is not actually addressing the reader, but rather his fictitious students in the classroom. The poem is a dialogue between teacher and students, with the aim of teaching the reader. In this way, Collins is able to communicate his ideas to the reader without giving them explicit instructions. The tone was casual at first as the speaker explained how he wanted his readers to “take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide” to explore its meaning and understand it. All he wanted to teach his readers is that exploring a poem is exciting. But towards the end of the poem, the tone shifts from casual to somber. This point of displacement indicates how the speaker is overall disturbed by how his reader approaches a poem differently than he had taught him. He reveals how his readers only had the mentality of "torturing a confession [of the poem]" by "beating it with a pipe..." to get straight to the meaning. He includes this transition in tone as a way to open readers' eyes so they may be guilty of overlooking a poem. Those who talk about poetry are telling us that a poem is not something that should be overlooked by readers but should be appreciated with an open mind. However, Collins also provides many examples through the speaker using metaphors. He compares the poem to many different things throughout the poem, the first of which the speaker asks students to “hold it up to the light like a color slide” (Collins, 1988, line 3). Here “it” refers to the poem in question. He is encouraging readers to look for its true value and appreciate the little things that may not be seen at face value. He continues, “press an ear against his hive” (Collins, 1988, line 4). In this way, Collins acknowledges the difficulty of poetry for some students, comparing it to a beehive, with the danger of being stung. This is a metaphor for any student who is afraid to guess for fear that their answer will be wrong. But at the same time, the speaker encourages his students to take this risk anyway, and further explains the rewards in the poem: “I want them to waterski on the surface of a poem” (Collins, 1988, line 10). Here the speaker gets to the point of what poetry should be. Water skiing is a way to relax on the lake on a beautiful summer day and engage in an enjoyable activity. Water skiing is gliding across the surface, and that is exactly what Collins wants readers to do with the poem. He wants them to enjoy it at face value for leisure. However, the speaker continues with what his students should not do either. He ends the poem with, “They start hitting him with a pipe to find out what it really means” (Collins, 1988, line 16). This is the speaker who advises students not to read and decipher the poem just because it has been assigned. They shouldn't read it.