D.C. Berry's On Reading Poems to a Senior Class at South High

The fish is a major symbolism within the boy’s life. The fish is mainly an illustration of a lost friendship or love. “Once the boy had seen a huge fish jump up high in the pond’s center, though his father told him the pond held no fish,” (Crabtree 72). The fish is a representation of the young boy’s friendship. The young boy thinks that he has a friend or love, but his father tells him that there is no such thing as a true friend. Stating that the friendship has ended or that the friend has gone away, either due to moving or death. Crabtree then writes, “But the boy had seen one, and was watchful,” (Crabtree 72). The young boy waits for that friendship to come. He waits for that one person that can help him through the ups and downs of life. He has encountered that feeling of love and honesty but now is just waiting for that person to come

Another one of the most important aspects of a great poem, is it’s form. The author’s

The conversation between child and parent in the previous paragraph may be a relatable situation for students, but it is not one they often see presented to them poetically. The Crossover is rife with everyday activities such as conversation, texting, doing homework and, of course, playing basketball. These scene present in poetry expose the growing resentment and eventual grief of the protagonist through a variety of figurative language techniques that enforces their importance and power to students in a way the traditional, unconnected anthology poetic does not. By doing this, “The Crossover” opens up a new understanding to students who found understanding poetry both boring and unattainable enter their literary

There are four examples of assonance in this poem, lines 6-7, 10, 14-15, and 21. In lines 6-7, fought/all and hung/grunting are assonants. In line 10, skin/strips are assonants and also the speaker uses hung again which she used earlier in line 7 to reiterate that the fish is dying. Blown/roses and stained/age are assonants in lines 14-15. Line 21 is the last line in this poem to employ assonance, green/weed and also the third line to use “hung”. The fish hanging on both describes its age as well as its weight. There is also repetition of “rainbow” four times, lines 69 and 75, which shows that she had a “vision” or a transformation that caused her to release the fish.

Billy Collins uses dark rooms, oceans, hives, color slides and mouse mazes to describe his poem “Introduction to Poetry”, but also a way to analyze poetry in general. Growing up, students are advised by teachers how to analyze poetry. The speaker of Introduction to Poetry, Billy Collins, attempts to guide the readers by teaching them a unique and appropriate way to analyze poetry. The use of personification and imagery, by the author, gives the readers a new perspective to interpret and find the significance in poetry. In this particular poem, the speaker does not want the reader to listen to the teachers of the reader’s past, “tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a

Another technique this poem takes use of is alliteration. The alliteration used helps to express the themes importance through repletion of sound devices. A specific example of alliteration

poem is not merely a static, decorative creation, but that it is an act of communication between the poet and

While reading the poem “Introduction to Poetry,” Billy Collins sends a message to the readers that they should be patient and impartial when it comes to analyzing a poem in order to see the true meaning behind the without being over analytical. There is a revieting situation that takes place because Billy Collins is delivering his message to all readers about the way that one should be able to read a poem. This poems educates the reader on how to be able to read and plunge into a poem, through using many techniques like mood, tone, and literary devices to do so. In the first two lines Collins demands that we tackle a poem with a invigorating eye. There should be an exploration of what the poem means to us. How does this poem apply to our

Prompt: Write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how the poem's organization, diction, and figurative language prepare the reader for the speaker's concluding response.

The poem is written in free verse, offers no type of rhyme scheme, and in one long stanza. This contributes to

In the poem “Introduction to Poetry,” Billy Collins contrasts a teacher’s passionate view of poetry with his students’ objective ones. The teacher urges the students to take the time to carefully examine a poem instead of forcing a deeper meaning out of its words. Collins uses imagery such as “press an ear against its hive” and “feel the walls for a light switch” to emphasize using all of the senses to fully experience a poem and to explain that there are various ways of approaching it. This imagery’s connotation also contrasts greatly with that of the students’. The teacher depicts creative and interesting ways of learning the true meaning of a poem while the students would rather “tie the poem to a chair with rope/and torture a confession

On his first day, he asks someone to read the introduction of the students’ textbook on poetry. The introduction was full of complex wording and ideas about how to understand poetry, which Keating thought was meaningless. He then tells the kids to rip out the whole introduction, saying that poetry goes well beyond the “technical aspects”.

The Poem “Introduction to Poetry” is by Billy Collins, an English poet, and it is about how teachers often force students to over-analyze poetry and to try decipher every possible meaning portrayed throughout the poem rather than allowing the students to form their own interpretation of the poem based on their own experiences.

To elaborate, the reader can not truly hear what is taking place in the poem, but does get a sense of being able to hear what they are reading. For instance when the speaker says “While his gills were breathing in” (22), the reader can almost hear the fish breathing. The speaker again stimulates the auditory senses when she says “and a fine black thread, / still crimped from the strain and snap” (58-59). Again the reader can virtually hear the sound of the line snapping. The next aspect of imagery that needs to be examined is the sensory imagery. An excellent example of sensory imagery is found when reading the lines “It was more like the tipping, / of an object toward light” (43-44). These lines can give an almost unbalanced feeling to the reader as they conceptualize these words. Imagery is not the only important element used in this poem. As stated earlier, irony is an important component involved in “The Fish”.

1. The poem is written in iambic pentameter with an abab cdcd efef gg rhyming scheme.