Introduction to Expository Writing

One of my favorite poems by former Poet Laureate, Billy Collins, is "Introduction to Poetry." 

I love the vibrant and clear images in the first five stanzas, as the speaker describes the many ways he wants his students to experience a poem. The speaker guides his students to "waterski / across the surface of a poem," and to "drop a mouse into a poem / and watch him probe his way out." I love how, in a poem exploring the difference between inhabiting a poem, and seeking the 'answer' to a poem, Collins's meaning is delightfully unambiguous.

"Introduction to Poetry" turns on the word 'but' in the sixth stanza, sharply contrasting the whimsical images found in the poem's opening with images of torture and violence in its conclusion. The poem closes with the image of students beating a poem with a hose.

It makes me chuckle every time I read it.

I thought it would be a fun exercise in creativity to write a poem of my own, emulating both the structure and the imagery of "Introduction to Poetry." However, I chose to steer the ending of my poem, "Introduction to Expository Writing," in a different, more hopeful, direction.

I had a lot of fun with this exercise. It is definitely a work in progress, and I have a feeling I'll keep fussing with it in the weeks to come, but I thoroughly enjoyed looking at the act of teaching First-Year Composition through the lens of poetry.




Introduction to Expository Writing


I ask them to take an idea

and roll it out before them

like a map of the world



or thump its melon hide

and listen for signs that it's ripe.



I say build a tree house, and view an idea

from above the canopy,



or shape an idea into a sandcastle,

and see what happens

when the tide rolls in.



I want them to chart a course to the heart of an idea,

using the constellations as their guide.



But they eye me with suspicion and ask,

"How many words

does this have to be?"



And then they pick up their tools

with uncalloused hands

and begin to chisel.