33 pages • 1 hour read
Billy CollinsIntroduction to Poetry
Billy CollinsFiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1988A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Literary Device Answers
1. D. The six metaphors are 1) the poem as a color slide, 2) the poem as a beehive, 3) the poem as a maze, 4) the poem as a dark room, 5) the poem as a body of water, and 6) the poem as a torture victim.
2. B. The volta, or “turn,” marks the place in the poem where the speaker shifts from offering ways they would like readers to approach poetry to explaining how readers (or students) usually approach poetry.
3. B. All of the metaphors involve an activity, suggesting that reading poetry is never a passive experience, but one in which the reader must engage with the poem itself. The metaphors also represent enjoyment and curiosity: waterskiing, solving a maze, listening to a beehive. Thus, the poem invites poetry readers to be led through a poem by their own inquisitiveness.
4. Possible answers could include “or press an ear against its hive” (line 4, iambic tetrameter), “or walk inside the poem’s room” (line 7, iambic tetrameter), or “to find out what it really means” (line 16, iambic tetrameter).
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