Gumby, Pokey, and Billy Collins

Sometimes I find these little reminders, thank yous, thoughts about a year, from teaching. I found this recently, a hand drawn thank you, in Gumby and Pokey theme, for a senior’s English year. It served as a bookmark in a book of Billy Collins’ poetry. My favorite comment from Kimberley in the card: “Your influence on my writing is something I also must express gratitude for. It’s transformed from being a chore, to something I really enjoy.”

Thanks, Kimberley. Here’s the poem, from this book, I always gave my classes as we went into a unit of poetry.

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 water-ski
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.