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 tries to convince the audience that poetry is not such a difficult part of literature to understand and reminds them why it exists in the first place: 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 Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay First, it is important to note which perspective Collins uses throughout the poem. The reader assumes that the speaker is a teacher at the school. Additionally, the speaker is not actually addressing the reader, but rather his fictional students in class. The poem is a dialogue between the teacher and the 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 opening tone was casual 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 was to teach his readers that exploring a poem is exciting. But toward the end of the poem, the tone shifts from casual to somber. This tipping point indicates how the speaker is overall troubled by the way his reader approaches a poem contrary to what he has taught him. He reveals that his readers only had the mentality of "torturing a confession from [the poem]" by "hitting it with a pipe..." to get straight to the meaning. He includes this transition in tone as a revelation to readers so that they may be guilty of overlooking a poem. The speaker of the poem tells us that a poem is not something that should be overlooked by readers but should be enjoyed with an open mind. However, Collins also gives many examples through the speaker using metaphors. He compares poetry to several different things throughout the poem, the first of which is asking students to “hold it up to the light like a colored slide” (Collins, 1988, line 3). Here, “it” refers to the poem in question. It encourages readers to seek its true value and appreciate the little things that might not be seen at face value. He continues: “press an ear against his hive” (Collins, 1988, line 4). Collins thus recognizes 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, fearing their answer will be wrong. But at the same time, the speaker encourages his students to take this risk anyway and explains the rewards later in the poem: "I want them to water ski across the surface of a poem" (Collins, 1988, line 10). Here the speaker arrives at his view of what poetry should be. Water skiing is a way to relax on the lake on a beautiful summer day for a leisurely activity. The water ski glides across the surface, and that's exactly what Collins wants readers to do with poetry. He wants them to take full advantage of it for their leisure time. Yet the speaker continues with what his students are not supposed to do too. He ends the poem with: “They start beating him with a pipe to find out what it really means” (Collins, 1988, line 16). It is the speaker who advises students not to..