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…

POEM: MYTH BY MURIEL RUKEYSER

Long afterward, Oedipus, old and blinded, walked the roads. He smelled a familiar smell. It was the Sphinx. Oedipus said, ‘I want to ask one question. Why didn’t I recognize my mother?’ ‘You gave the wrong answer,’ said the Sphinx. ‘But that was what made everything possible,’ said Oedipus. ‘No,’ she said. ‘When I asked,…