poem of the day

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 waterski
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.

400th anniversary of John Milton's Birth

Archbishop Cranmer has reflections on the man and poet:

He was quite simply a religio-politico-philosophical genius who articulated some of the most fundamental and valuable insights about politics, society, morality, and human nature.

He was a prophetic philosopher poet.

We shall not look upon his like again.

Indeed.