The statement of paradox for intro to poetry by Billy Collins is that the author desperately wants the readers of poetry (who he refers to as “them”) to engage in a sensory filled experience when reading poems and instead they ignore the actual content of the poem in search of a deeper meaning.
Fittingly, Collins uses loads of imagery in this poem to help support his paradox. In stanza #1 he writes “I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide.” This use of visual imagery evokes a optical experience in that the reader can actually perceive the vivd light and color that the author is alluding to.
Next in stanza #2 Collins writes “or press an ear against its hive.” In this illustration he is attempting to elicit auditory imagery by inviting the reader to physically hear the words of the poem.
Furthermore in the middle stanzas Collins uses multiple examples of kinesthetic imagery by inviting us to “watch”, “walk”, “feel”, and “waterski” our way to a more poetically sensual experience.
By the end of stanza #5 the readers are presumably on a multi-sensory high being drawn deeper and deeper into the authors passion for poetry when the author interrupts us with his frustrating reality that,
“all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it.”
We, the readers, are then left feeling cold and empty. The poem then resolves abruptly with one final use of visual imagery that leaves the reader feeling like an executioner of words.
I would agree that the author of this work uses imagery quite effectively to portray his own feelings on poetry and to make the readers of the work feel somewhat guilty about themselves.
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